


The Double

by NightOwl14



Series: The Double Initiative [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Clones, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:33:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1251196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightOwl14/pseuds/NightOwl14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A century into the future, children are raised in government facilities rather than at home with their parents. Parents can still opt to raise, feed and school their children on their own, but at a price: The child must be cloned at birth and its Institutional Clone, or ‘Double’ must be raised by the government. On their eighteenth birthdays, the double and the original must face off in an competition known as The Examination to determine which of them is superior and will be allowed a future in the society. Jensen Ackles is one such original and the time for his Examination has arrived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really excited about this story idea, let me know what you think :) This is going to be shorter than my other fics, probably about 20,000-30,000 words. I was going to submit it as a big bang, but now I'm thinking I'll do something else because I didn't want to wait five months to post this. 
> 
> As always, Kudos and Comments are what keep me writing so they are much appreciated!!

**Prologue**

The broadcast was on every television channel. Every radio station. Every Internet webpage. Hovercrafts were deployed all over the country, one for every large city: 34,067 in total.

Crowds gathered between the skyscrapers and from above they probably looked like billions of rats in a never-ending maze.

Each hovercraft stopped, bobbing up and down in the air as though it were floating on calm ocean waves. Then, simultaneously, at midnight in Washington D.C., the holographic face of President Julia McNiven was projected into the cool night air by the hovercrafts.

34,067 images of the same face flickered next to the stars.

A hush passed over every crowd for a brief moment before the protesters started to shout obscenities. Some even began shooting guns and fireworks into the night sky. Many people were injured, a good number even died. The policemen couldn’t make their way through the crowds in time to stop or even catch half of the people responsible.

Fifteen seconds after her face illuminated the city sky Julia McNiven began to speak:

_This is an announcement from the President of The United States of America. What I am about to say will apply to every individual in this country and will be prepped for in the coming months so I suggest you pay very close attention._

_The government institutions that have been created recently in place of the public school system have been met with quite a bit of resistance. This is understandable, some parents wish to raise their children on their own and instill in them traditional values._

_Of course, we believe that the institutions will provide the best future for your children and therefore, this country. However, parents should have the right to chose how their child is raised, provided that their child is still raised to government standards._

_We will allow parents the opportunity to home-school, feed and raise their children as long as the children raised at home are proven to have been raised well. Their abilities will have to be tested in an Examination that is unlike any that has come before._

_A new set of laws will be put into affect, known as The Double Initiative._

_This is what the laws will entail…_

           


	2. The Cleaning

           

**Part One: The Cleaning**

The waiting room is air-conditioned and rather chilly but I can still feel the sweat running down the back of my neck. I rub my hands together and clear my throat. “What time is it?” I ask the empty room.

The automated voice that responds is female. It usually is in hospitals, possibly because the government thinks that it’s more calming than that of a male. “It is 12:06 on July 19th, 2107.” As the room speaks, a clock and a calendar displaying the aforementioned date and time pop up on the white glass walls of the waiting room.

I roll my eyes, still not quite sure why they bother with the images. The calendar was easy to understand but nobody under the age of fifty knew how to read clocks anymore.

A few seconds later the digital images of the clock and calendar disappear and the walls are back to being plain white.

It’s two more minutes before the glass door slides open and a woman in soft blue scrubs walks in. Her shoes make clicking noises as she walks across the tile floor. Despite the fact that she is eleven minutes late she appears to be in no hurry. Not that I’m in any hurry to get where she’s going to take me to either, but I’d still appreciate an apology for the tardiness-out of respect if not genuine concern.

“Jensen Ackles?” She asks, tucking a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear.

My throat feels dry so I nod, rather than answer. I wish my mother were here, despite how childish that may sound. Despite how much crap I’d get if any of the other children my age heard me admit that. They’d say it was exactly what they’d expect from an original.

“I’m Doctor Tal and I’m here to assist you with the preparation and execution of your examination.” She smiles and holds out a glass pad and a stylus. “I just need you to sign here, sweetie.”

I flinch when she calls me sweetie but I accept the proffered items without question. The digital words on the glass pad are similar to the ones that were on the pad my parents signed eighteen years ago when I was born, except that instead of the phrase ‘your child’ I’m reading the word ‘you’.

Instead of  _A Double of your child will be created_ , it’s  _A Double of you has been created_.

Instead of  _The Double will be raised in an institution while your child is raised at home with you_ , it’s  _Your Double was raised in the Institution of Northern New Jersey and you were raised at home with your parents_.

And instead of  _On your child’s eighteenth birthday he and his Double will participate in an examination to determine which of them will be more of an asset to society_ , it’s  _On your eighteenth birthday you and your Double will participate in an examination to determine which of you is more of an asset to society_.

And everyone knows what happens to the person that fails the examination.

But my parent’s decided it was worth it. They didn’t want me growing up in those government institutions like the other kids. “A prison of communism and conformity” my father would say after a drink too many. They wanted to raise me themselves.

And this was the price.

 I press the stylus to the pad lightly. I haven’t written anything in a very long time-everything’s typed nowadays-and I’m sure it doesn’t help that my hands are trembling. 

I almost drop the pad when I hand it back to her and I say a silent thank you to the Doctor for not commenting. Instead she begins to explain the procedure for the rest of the day. 

“We’re going to start with a cleaning. That should take about an hour. You may or may not have to be put under-it depends. Your examination is at two so you’ll have some time to ask any questions you might have, or just to be alone if you prefer. After that, you and your double will enter the arena and-Well, you know.”

Actually, I don’t know. The events of the examination are top secret. Known only by the Doctors that conduct them and the leaders of the country. Even the winners don’t know. A couple days after the examination their memories of everything from the day of the exam to the day of the wiping is erased.

Thinking about that makes my brain automatically jump to the comparison between the number of doubles who win and the number of originals. I swallow. The odds are not in my favor. 

Doctor Tal turns around and begins to make her way back towards the sliding door. She’s reading over the information on the pad as she does and it’s only until after the door slides open that she looks back, realizing I haven’t followed her.

“Sorry,” I mutter as I scurry to catch up. The gaze she fixes me with is a sympathetic one and it makes my chest tighten in anger. If she wanted to help me she could, it wasn’t completely beyond her control. She could try and help me escape, maybe help me win; looking at me like I was a kicked puppy wasn’t going to do shit for me, only for her conscience.  

The door leads to a long white hallway. It’s lined with gurneys and medical staff members-some gossiping, some entering data into their pads and some interacting with the touch-screen walls I longed for so desperately when I was younger, but we could never afford. One of the downsides of being an original is having less money than most other families. And having everybody think of you as an uneducated idiot. And the fact that you probably won’t live past eighteen.

When you put it into perspective, having to settle for an interactive mirror instead of interactive walls isn’t really all that bad. 

The soft buzzing of machines and chatter must not be enough for Doctor Tal because as we walk she clears her throat. The room may be humming with noise but the silence between us is all too deafening and though I’m not much for small talk, it might serve as a distraction. 

So when she asks if I have any questions about the cleaning, I rack my brain thinking of something, anything, to ask.

“What exactly is going to be done to me?” It’s vague, open enough to give the Doctor a plethora of room to elaborate, should she chose to do so.

She does.

“Well, sweetie, you’re going to be inspected and examined at the same time as your double so that the doctors can be certain to eliminate any physical differences between the two of you. We’ll get rid of scars, moles, and tattoos. Anything that the two of you don’t share. You don’t have any tattoos, do you?” A single headshake and then she’s starting up again. “Good, you can tell me, you know? If you do have any. I’ll find out eventually anyway, and I promise not to punish you. I know it’s against the law for any children who have Institutional Clones made, but I’ve seen it, alright. This one girl had a butterfly right on her…”

She keeps talking but I’ve long since stopped listening. I could care less about the cleaning. I know what they’re going to do, generally anyway, and I know why. The same reason I’m going to have to wear one of those stupid jumpsuits. It was all written in bold black digital letters on the pad that I signed not five minutes ago.

The examination is an experiment. The Institution is the variable being tested. More than one variable would interfere with the experiment, tilt the odds. It would be unacceptable. Therefore, my double and I need to be made as alike as possible.

As in accordance with The Double Initiative.

We reach the end of the hallway and the entrance to another room. But this sliding glass door is black instead of clear and see-through. The Doctor takes a break from her one-sided banter to press her palm flat against the door. She then pulls it away and continues speaking.

But my eyes are still on the door. A digital handprint is still visible in a bright florescent red color. Slowly, bit-by-bit, from fingers to palm, the print turns green. It’s not until the entire things is the color of sour bubble gum that an automated voice-again female-begins to speak.

“Welcome to the Cleaning Center, Doctor Alona Tal.”

 _Alona_ , it’s an old fashioned name. I think I have an aunt on my father’s side called that. It’s a dumb thing to think about but it’s a distraction, and right now I’m clinging to them like an umbrella in the wind during a rainstorm.

The Cleaning Center is a large rectangular room with a row of metal tables spanning it. With an almost imperceptible flick of her wrist Doctor Tal, Alona, directs me to sit on a table. She then places the glass pad down into its doc on the wall and a green charging symbol pops up on the glass.

“Okay, we’re just going to start off with a few tests. Your blood sample that was taken at your previous doctor’s appointment came back clean, as did that of your double. Your hair and nails have already been trimmed so that they’re identical. But there are a few other things that need to be checked on.” She pulls out a stethoscope from a nearby drawer. “Let’s begin.”

My heart, lungs, ears and everything else that she tests all seem fine, or so she says. Some miniscule part of me was begging, pleading--over and over like a drumbeat--that something would be wrong and the examination would have to be pushed back. But that didn’t happen.

I flinch when the nurse drops a paper gown onto the table next to me. It’s only once I fully process what it is that my eyes go wide.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. You aren’t the first I’ve seen, though you may be the prettiest.” She winks at me. “Go on, get changed.”

So I do. I strip all the way down to my boxers before I look up at her, questioningly. A slight nod and a hint of an impish smile is the response so I step out of them. The room is chilly and the paper gown that I quickly tug on doesn’t do much to help.

I sit back up on the table and instantly regret it. The cold metal makes me flinch and I almost jump back off, solely because of my reflexes. Instead I grit my teeth.

It’s humiliating, almost degrading, to have the nurse look over every inch of my skin-even the parts that no one besides my mother has ever seen-while I shiver and shift uncomfortably. I can tell by her pursed lips and sparkling eyes that she’s holding back laughter at how awkward I’m being.

She opens up a textbox on one of the walls and makes a note of every scar, every freckle, every burn and every mole. She then mails the list off to another doctor with a very long name that I don’t bother reading. I assume it’s whoever is helping my Institutional Clone: Jensen Ackles I.C.

I don’t bother reading the list that returns either but Doctor Tal tells me that there are three inconsistencies that need to be addressed. The first being a mole on my I.C.’s ribcage that I lack, but that will be removed by the other doctor, the second is a scar that he has on his wrist from where his identification chip was implanted. That will also be taken care of by the other doctor. My only problem is the scar I have on my lower leg from a motorcycle accident a few years ago.

“Lie back on the table.” I do and then I feel her gloved hands rubbing some sort of thick cool cream over my scar. I try to watch without sitting up but I can only catch glimpses.

“Is it going to hurt?” I sound like a child, but who the hell cares.

“Maybe a brief stinging sensation but in a minute or two you’ll be good as new. I would numb you but…”

She doesn’t have to finish; an hour or two isn’t enough to guarantee that whatever she gives me will be out of my system in time for the examination. Unwanted variables are a big red flag.

Doctor Tal takes out a silver cylinder about the size of her finger. She lines it up with the raised section of my skin and presses the button on the end of it. A short red laser light shoots out of it, and I bite my lip as the laser burns off the raised skin. It’s a lot more than a brief stinging sensation but I don’t say anything.

She picks up the strip of now dead skin and throws it into the trashcan near the door. Lasers shoot out from inside the can and incinerate it so quickly that by the time it reaches the bottom of the can it’s been reduced to ash. The small particles settle on top of the smoke colored hill of dust already collecting at the bottom of the can. 

I look down at my leg. A strip of its skin is shiny and pink and it is the only part of my leg that had absolutely no hair.

The second part of the cleaning is a lot less painful.

At the end of the row of tables is a shower. Again, Alona has to press her hand on the door and her palm print has to turn green but eventually the door slides open and I step inside, pulling off my paper gown and handing it to her.

The door shuts and clicks and before I know it water is pouring out of tiny holes on the ceiling and drenching me. The water’s hot but not scalding and I close my eyes and pretend that I’m at home.

The illusion doesn’t last long though because soon it’s not water that’s pouring from the ceiling but some milky chemical substance that smells like chlorine and burns a little. I close my mouth and my eyes and within minutes the liquid has become water again.

I must’ve been in the shower for ten minutes before the water stopped again. Now, it’s just a steady stream of warm air, coming down from above. Like a hand dryer but for my entire body. Any remaining water droplets that were clinging to my skin slide off and find their way into the drain.

When the airflow stops the glass door slides open and Doctor Tal is standing there with a leathery looking jumpsuit in her hands. It’s mostly black with a white stripe going up each of the arms and legs. The material is suffocating and I find myself tugging at the collar of the suit in an attempt to breathe better.

When Tal notices she smiles at me in that same old sympathetic way that’s really starting to grate at my already fraying nerves.

She leads me to the nearest metal table and I sit up on it, she sits on the table next to it and I turn to face her. “So, now’s the time for any questions you might have, Jensen?”

It’s the first time since asking me who I was that she’s actually addressing me by name.

I take a deep breath. I want to be left alone but that isn’t going to happen. They won’t let me, too afraid that I’ll purposely harm myself or do something else in an attempt to postpone the examination. I can’t say that they’re wrong.

“If I lose,” I say softly, “how long do I have before…”

“Your organs are harvested?” I find myself appreciating her bluntness, and I nod. “You’ll be given a half hour alone with your parents to say your goodbyes. Then you’ll be handed over into the government’s custody, which will involve the signing of several legal documents, following which you will be brought to an operating room and sedated. You won’t wake up.”

The speech is a recitation, something she’s said to other sad, lonely, inferior little originals just before sending them to their death. I close my eyes.  _I will not cry. I will not cry._

I try to think of another question. Clearing my throat, I ask “Is there anything you can tell me about the actual examination. Any tips or anything.” The answer is no but I need to talk to distract from the wetness threatening to spill from my eyes.

“All I can say is what Dr. Padalecki told your I.C., make sure you follow the rules or you will be disqualified automatically.” 

A minute or two passes in silence. I find myself trying to make time last longer. Stretching out each minute in my mind the way one might stretch a rubber band.

I don’t want to take the examination.

_I have to._

This is all my parents fault. I hate them.

_I love them. I’m going to miss them so much._

I don’t want to die.

_Then I have to win._

 I wander briefly if my double is experiencing the same emotional tug-of-war as I am. If he’s terrified of losing, of having his organs ripped out before the rest of him is turned to ash. Probably not. He’s probably almost certain he’s going to win. He probably will.

That’s what the institutions are; they raise design and craft children specifically to give them the qualities necessary for them to win the examination. To improve society. After all, the same government that created the test created the institutions. If the examination is physical, he’ll be stronger than I am. If it’s intellectual, he’ll be smarter.

All the odds are in his favor and there’s no way, dumb luck aside, that I will win. The only thing I have on my side is motivation. I have a life, parents that love me; my double can’t say the same. If I win it will be because I have something worth fighting for.

I’m not sure how much time passes before the walls blink a stark red color before returning to white-it’s our signal that it’s time.

Alona slides off the table and I do the same. The material of my jumpsuit squeaks against the metal.

I don’t pay attention to where we walk, hallway after hallway but I’m so lost inside my own head, inside the pounding of my heart, that I don’t know how many or which way we turn at the end of each.

We climb a winding staircase and at the top of it are glass, sliding double doors, and much like the door of the cleaning room, they’re tinted black.

Tal squeezed my shoulder, I’m as tall as she is-and she’s wearing heels-but I feel much smaller. I feel like if I crumple to the floor and wrap my arms around my legs I’ll be so small that no one will even see me.

The doctor puts her hand on one side of the door and motions for me to place mine on the other. The glass is cool beneath my sweating fingertips and I hope my perspiration won’t mess with the palm reading.

Actually, I’m praying that it will.

We pull our palms away and, with my eyes, I trace the invisible line that separates the red from the green as my handprint changes color. I don’t look up at Alona when she whispers to me but her words echo in my head up until the doors slide open to reveal an empty, entirely black room the size of an elevator.

“You haven’t lost yet, sweetie.”

I think about responding with some sort of touching final statement. Maybe something about how cruel the examination is. Maybe something about how much I love my parents. I just want her to think, to think about what she’s doing and how wrong it is. I want her to remember me. I don’t want to be ‘just another one’ I want to be ‘ _that_ one’. For a brief moment I consider telling her that I hate her.

But I don’t say that, because I don’t hate her. It isn’t fair to.

If I hated everyone who had a hand in putting me into this situation, I’d hate everyone. And as much as I want to hate them, as much as I want to blame them, I don’t. I want to die loving somebody.

So I don’t say anything at all, and I try to remember what the last thing I said was, but I don’t. It didn’t seem important at the time and isn’t suddenly important now. They’re just words and will mean so little in comparison to everything that happens during the examination.

I step through the doors and they slide closed behind me. Alona is gone and the entire room is dark. I almost fall forward when the floor jerks and then begins to move slowly downward.

This is it. My entire life I’ve been told about this moment and what happens in the next half hour is going to determine whether I live or die.

The room suddenly feels claustrophobic. I’m having trouble breathing and I bend forward, my hands on my knees. I’m hyperventilating. My breaths are quick and fitful and I have about ten seconds to get a handle on myself.

Then, the room comes to a soft halt and it’s like a switch has flipped. I’m not panicking anymore, but I can feel a tugging sensation near my throat.

_I will not cry._

A number pops up on the wall. It is a large red ten and it provides the only light in the tiny room. If I look closely enough I can almost see myself reflected darkly in the glass. I look the same as I always have but I have never felt more insufficient or inadequate-and originals spend their entire lives being made to feel nothing but. 

_Nine._

The panic is starting again. The drum is beating. The earth is shaking. Not quaking but almost vibrating beneath me and my insides are itching to get out, scratching at everything inside of me and making these horrible mewling noises. 

_Eight._

I try to focus on seeing the number, studying the details in the red connecting digital circles.

I try to do anything to distract from the burning behind my eyes. I can bite back my feelings; I’ve done it for years. Every laugh. Every taunt. Every joke I was the butt of. Every time a stranger looked down their noses at the dumb little original, already on a one-way street to the operating table.

_Six._

I am not a child.

I am not a child. _I will not cry._  

I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. I’ve spent the past few months convincing myself that I was ready to die. But now I think maybe I want to really fight. Is it worth it? Throwing away those months spent practicing apathy in exchange for a tiny chance. Is getting my hopes up enough to try and win worth the risk of the pain I will feel if I lose. I’d be throwing away my acceptance for a shot in the dark. A pinprick on the horizon. But I can’t bring myself to just lie down and die. It just isn’t who I am.

I smile slightly, the corner of my mouth quirking up.

It isn’t how I was raised.

_Three._

_I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry._

Fuck it. I’m going to die-I can cry if I want to. I open my eyes. Tears spill out. They leave wet tracks as they race down my cheeks.

Here we go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope people like what I have in store for The Examination. I'm very excited about it


	3. The Examination

The number disappears and the entire wall slides upward like the door of a garage. White light begins leaking through and I squint.

White. The room is large and ovular and entirely a pristine shade of white. It reminds me of one of those olden day hokey rinks-except that the rows of screaming fans and the tiny, netted, goals that all the holograms usually display are missing. There’s just an endless sea of white.

Aside from, of course, the boy standing across the room, staring at me in a way that makes my skin crawl.

I step forward, out of the black room, and he does the same.

He’s wearing the same skin-tight uniform I am, but instead of looking claustrophobic and ridiculous he looks threatening. He also looks bigger, not taller, but bigger. As we walk closer to each other I can see the size of his arms and I’m fairly certain that my own look scrawny in comparison.

We stop a few feet from each other, in the center of the room. I can hear the door to the black room closing behind me and I watch it happen to the identical door over his shoulder.

Then my eyes meet his.

He’s shaking; trembling ever so slightly-something I’ve been proud of restraining myself from doing. I know the expression on his face; I’ve seen it in the mirror. When I was seven and I dropped the television remote on the floor-leaving a deep white crack on the glass and preventing me from being able to press the digital number three ever again. When I was fifteen and I stole my father’s motorcycle, turned off autopilot and drove so fast the skyscrapers around me turned into a blur--then crashed into the side of a bridge leaving me with a week in the hospital and a scar on my leg that, as of thirty minutes ago, I no longer have.

That look is guilt.

“I’m sorry,” his voice is a whisper, but the words are sincere. “If it were up to me it’d be a fair fight-but it isn’t up to me.” He pauses and then looks around worriedly, as though we’re being watched. We probably are. It is the job of the doctors-Tal and whomever my clone’s doctor was-to monitor the examination. Cameras aren’t used, in case the hospital’s database is somehow hacked and the footage is leaked, so I’m sure they’re somehow overseeing.

I feel almost touched at the sentiment, maybe a little offended the he’s already assumed I’ll lose, but I’ve already assumed I’ll lose as well, so I can’t really blame him. “Thanks, but it isn’t your fault. And anyway, it’s as close to a fair fight as it can be, they made damn sure of that.”

I expect a chuckle or maybe a solemn nod but what I get is a look of sincere sympathy. The sad smile you give a child when they ask what dead means and why it is preventing them from seeing their pet kitten.

That’s when I notice he’s holding something in his hand.

A crackle fills the room and then the same female voice that had informed me of the time and date in the waiting room about two hours ago begins to speak. “Hello. Welcome Jensen Ackles and Jensen Ackles: Institutional Clone, to your examination. The winner of this examination will begin preparation for the Career Assignment ceremony next week and will then continue into whichever career path they are assigned to. The loser will be taken to the harvesting centers located in the basement of the hospital and will have their organs and other valuable body parts extracted and donated before the remainder of their body is cremated. Let’s begin.”

The words should fill me with a cool, clinical kind of terror but my focus is on the object in my I.C.’s hand. It is small and black, a square of some sort and I want to know why he has it. No variables, that’s the rule, and I was never given a box.

Thinking back to his expression I realize that the guilt had less to do with his superiority and more to do with his cheating. The more I think it through the more it makes sense.

That little black box is going to help him win somehow, I’m certain of it.

I’m supposed to follow the rules-that’s what the doctor said-but if my I.C. isn’t playing fair then I won’t either. I can hear the female voice telling me and my double not to move until the examination begins but I lurch forward and make a grab at the box.

“What the hell,” my double shouts as the object falls from his hand and slides across the smooth white floor.

I make a move toward it and I feel my double punch me in the face. I’ve never been hit before and it fucking hurts, not to mention the crack I heard in my nose. I swing my fist back and hit him as well, it’s sloppy and not very effective but satisfaction washes over me when I see the blood trickle from his nose and it is well worth the pain in my knuckles.

Again, I dive for the box, literally throwing myself to the ground this time. My fingertips graze the rough surface but before I know it, he’s on top of me, turning me over onto my back and punching me.

In a lucky move I manage to get my leg out from under him and I kick him in the stomach, sending him onto his back, before I jump up and tackle him.

And then we’re rolling and hitting and in the background I can hear the robotic monotone telling us to stop the violence now or we will both be disqualified but I’m not paying attention, because somehow-in the midst of all this fighting-I’ve managed to think things over.

There is no way in hell that my double snuck that tiny black box in here without his doctor knowing. He’s in a skintight jump suit, where the hell would he have hidden it?

So maybe he didn’t sneak it in at all, maybe they gave it to him. I think of how many adult originals I’ve seen in my entire life. The answer is one-and how do I know he wasn’t lying about being an original.

My I.C. isn’t cheating. My government is.

An idea begins to form, the kind so absolutely insane that it just might work

I manage to get a well-placed hit in, hard enough to leave my double dazed. I stand up, look down at him and shake my head.

“Fucking originals,” I spit, hoping Tal and the other doctor with the long name are listening. I trudge over to the black box and pick it up. It only takes a second to spot the small button-which is a relief because if the doctors saw me trying to figure it out they’d know that I wasn’t the double. They may already know-but with all the rolling around that was done I can only pray that they think I’m him.

I run my fingers over the button.

“Please don’t,” my double croaks and I turn to face him. I should sympathize. He looks like me, exactly like me. I should want to help him. All I can feel is a tidal wave of anger washing over me.

I press down on the button. “If it were up to me it would’ve been a fair fight,” I hiss, mockingly.

My double lets out a sob and now I’m sure I’m mirroring his earlier expression of guilt. But not for long because the buzzing of electricity begins to fill the room, drawing my attention away.

The electric sparking noise continues, except that it’s drowned out by the frantic screaming of my double. Like and animal locked in a cage. His string of pleas doesn’t even make any sense.

“No, oh god, no!” he coughs and struggles to his feet, wobbling a little. “Stop. Stop it! Make it stop. It isn’t right!” By this time he wasn’t yelling at me, but rather, at the ceiling. Presumably at the two doctors who had orchestrated this.

Tal’s last words to me echo in my head. “You haven’t lost yet, sweetie.” They sound like some sort of sick practical joke. Did she say that to all the originals she sent in like lambs to a slaughter?

I feel nauseous.

My thoughts distract me and I don’t notice my double running at me until it’s far too late to move out of the way. Luckily, I don’t need to move. He’s almost a foot away from me when he slams against an invisible wall, a force field.

It’s an electrical tube, just large enough to wrap around me and stretch all the way up to ceiling so that there was no climbing inside. It looks a little like I’m surrounded by glass-tinted a faint, florescent blue-and when my double collides with it I can almost see the spark as it shocks him so hard he stumbles backwards and hits the ground.

Is that all? A force field. No, can’t be. My I.C. doesn’t have tears running down his cheeks because of a goddamn force field. There’s something else. I brace myself.

I don’t have to wait very long to figure out what that something else is. Within seconds a misty white gas begins entering through the vents in the room. My double starts screaming again but I can’t hear him through the electric barrier.

Nineteen minutes and fifty-three seconds. That’s how long it took for my double to die.

I counted silently, my lips moving without making noise.

I watched the gas fill the room. I held my breath as it spread around the force field like a blanket--leaving me untouched. I could only see a few feet away from myself at that point, but I didn’t need to see any further because my double was right there, banging his fists against the field despite the electric shock.

Crying. Begging. Screaming.

I couldn’t hear but I could tell.

I watched him die little by little. Movements became sluggish. Eyes became dazed. He slid down the field as it shocked him so violently his body began to shake. He was still sitting; still leaning against it, with his eyes wide open. His body still shook as electricity pushed it forward, away from the wall, only for gravity to push it back down and collide with the force field again. A sick back and forth motion that refused to stop.

Nineteen minutes and fifty-three seconds. That was supposed to be me.

There is no examination. All of it is for show. Maybe once in a blue moon they let an original win so that nobody starts asking questions, but for the most part, they murder us.

Oh god, this is such a mess.

The white mist dissipates slowly, I can’t hear any fans blowing through the force field but I can assume. It leaves much quicker than it came and when it’s gone the electric field flickers before disappearing completely.

I take a few quick steps back to avoid being hit by my double’s body as he falls to the ground completely.

His eyes are open wide but they aren’t staring at anything. His mouth is wide open too, contorted into an odd shape because of where his face is pressed against the floor.

I lean forward and throw up. I haven’t eaten in hours so most of it is yellowish bile. It spreads out along the floor and as I watch it spread toward my double I consider moving him away but I can barley bring myself to look at him, let alone touch him. Some of the puke seeps into his open mouth.

I throw up again.

The second time, my hand goes lax and the tiny black box drops to the ground next to me. It’s only after that I stop to worry about the bottom being hit by the floor but nothing happens, so I assumed either it didn’t or it only works once.

I fall to my knees just when the garage-type door begins to open and Doctor Tal as well as a tall man wearing the same color scrubs, walk out of the same black room I entered through.


	4. The Institution

They begin running towards me and I try to stand up only to sink back to my knees. I would completely collapse if I could do so without landing in my own vomit.

“Jensen,” the man calls. His voice is deep and warm; he runs up to me and pulls me by my elbow into a standing position. “What the hell were you thinking?”

His voice is a hiss. He seems sincerely angry and I feel like both crying and screaming at him. He and Tal and this government sent me in here to die. I’m not going to apologize for doing what I had to in order to survive. How was I supposed to know that the button would kill him?

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed,” the man goes on, and that’s where I begin to get confused. My eyes shift to Doctor Tal but she’s talking hurriedly into an earpiece. “I know you feel guilty about this whole thing but an apology wasn’t going to change anything and you almost died. What if he’d gotten to the button before you did, huh, what then?”

Doctor Tal presses a button on the earpiece and turns toward us. The second she does, the other doctor drops my arm and takes a small step away from me. It’s like a switch has flipped. His voice is a lot more official and devoid of all anger when he continues.

“What you did was both dangerous and disappointing. Your death would’ve been a waste of both my and the institute’s time. If you do anything this reckless again I can assure you there will be consequences.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, because I’m not quite sure what else to say.

They’re acting like…I look down at my double’s body. Well, they’re acting like I’m him. I look back up at the man, whose posture is professional but who appears to be trying to communicate with me using his eyes.

Then I look at Doctor Tal who shakes her head at the body lying on the ground. She opens her mouth and then closes it. As I watch her squeeze her eyes shut in what looks like an attempt to keep from crying I think that maybe these people feel guilt after all.

And I think that maybe these people fell for my insane little plan. Maybe they think I’m my double.

Then, I hear the door behind me open and a team of medics in white scrubs and masks rush out, one of them is pushing a stretcher. Behind the team of medics is what I assume to be a janitor who is wearing the same scrubs except he is holding a mop and a bucket.

It takes me a moment to remember exactly what needs to be mopped up and when I do I blush furiously.

“Doctor Tal, I assume you have this under control.” The other doctor says, but it’s more like a question.

Tal looks up, her blonde hair is disheveled and her mouth is slightly parted. She looks like she wants to ask him to stay. She looks so upset that I almost feel bad until I look down at my double and remember that was supposed to be me. This can’t have been the first time she’s been assigned to an original, though, so to make her this upset I must’ve made an impression on her after all.

Finally she nods, and the man says a brief thank you before gripping my arm slightly harder than necessary and dragging me towards the white garage-type door.

It’s then that I begin to panic. In the short-term pretending to be my double seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t until I started to think about the long-term effects, the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about his life that the world started to feel like it was crashing down. The man gives me a brief glance before placing his palm on the glass door and watching it turn from red to green.

It feels like he can see right through me. It feels like everyone can.

“Welcome to Examination Elevator Number Two, Doctor Jared Padalecki.” Chirps the automated voice.

Doctor Padalecki. I think the name over and over, trying to learn how to pronounce it without ever having actually said it.

The white door slides up and we step inside. The doctor turns us around so I watch the door as it closes and I can see my double being lifted onto the stretcher. I also see the brief glare Doctor Tal gives me and I feel almost flattered that my death has made her angry.

I’m hoping that the elevator ride will be spent in silence, but my luck has never been all that good so it’s unrealistic to hope that things were just going to magically start going my way.

The seconds the door clicks closed the man turns to me and pushes me up against the elevator wall.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Jensen? You almost died!” Unlike my first ride in the elevator, the lights are on, and as the man looks me over his voice drops to a whisper, “You almost…fuck.” Then he leans in and kisses me.

I’ve never been kissed before, hardly ever even met a boy or a girl my age. I wasn’t even sure which I was attracted to. In the surprise my mouth opens slightly and I feel it when his tongue dips inside. After a few moments I do my best to kiss back. It’s rough and passionate on his part but it’s also soft and altogether nice.

When he pulls away he smiles at me, brings his hand up to me cheek and says, “You really need to brush your teeth, Jense.”

I start to laugh, and then I start to cry. And I’m so sure that I’ve just given myself away that I cry harder. And suddenly his arms are around me and he must’ve pressed a button of some sort because the elevator stopped moving.

One of his large hands cradles the back of my head as he pulls my face to his neck and then he begins to whisper. “Hey, it’s okay. Jensen, it’s okay. You did what you had to and now everything’s fine.” He kisses the top of my head. “And I’m not angry at you, not really, baby. I was just scared. I mean you, fuck, Jen you almost died. But you didn’t and everything’s okay. In a couple of days you won’t even remember any of it anyway. You don’t even have to go back to the institution. You can stay with me. I mean, once you get your career assignment you’re gonna move in anyway, might as well get a feel for the place, huh?”

He pulls back and kisses me on the nose with an affection I’ve only ever seen from my parents. I don’t know how it took me this long to see it but it’s obvious, he was in love with my double. _Is_ in love with my double, as far he knows.

I should feel guilty but now that the tears are gone I just feel sort of numb.

I nod at him and I wipe my eyes on the back of my sleeve, which ultimately doesn’t do much because the material is waterproof.

            Doctor Padalecki- _Jared_ , I correct myself, I’m assuming we’re on a first name basis, seeing as how his tongue was just in my mouth-goes back to the wall, pressed a few digital buttons and the elevator begins to move again.

            He’s handsome, the doctor. He has longer hair, but not too long and eyes that are naturally a lot of different colors and they’re much nicer than the artificial purple that the girls on television have injected into their eyes.

I don’t know how he and my double met because I hadn’t met Doctor Tal until today and there aren’t supposed to be any variables. Then again, the test was a hoax, most likely designed to make the government and their institutions look good, there was no need to actually abide by the supposed rules.

I think about asking him how he could do this and not feel guilty. Even my double, it seems, felt some sort of remorse. But then the elevator comes to halt and Jared smiles softly at me and I feel a warm sort of rush.

The door opens and it’s at the top of a flight of spiral stairs, exactly the same as the one I’d climbed just minutes ago. It feels more like hours. Jared puts a hand on my back and I can feel the heat from his body seeping through my clothes.

He leans down and whispers “Let’s get you out of that ridiculous outfit, okay?”

I nod and smile up at him. I feel like I’m cheating at some sort of game but I can’t bring myself to stop.

He directs us into an empty hospital room and he taps twice on the clear glass. It turns that familiar black color and once the door slides shut he points towards a pile of clothes on the bed before he ducks into the bathroom

            I nearly run over to them, so damn happy not to have to wear this jumpsuit anymore. I tug off the suit in one quick motion. The clothes laid out for me are a black shirt, black boxers and a pair of jeans. I wonder absently if it belonged to my now dead double.

            It isn’t until I’m buttoning my jeans that I look over at Jared and see him unashamedly staring at me. I don’t know why I’d assumed he’d stayed in the bathroom, but I had, and I’d been so damned excited that I hadn’t even noticed when he came back in.

            I cleared my throat and tried to make my voice sound teasing. “You know, some privacy would’ve been nice.” I don’t have to see my face to know I’m blushing.

            Jared raises an eyebrow. “You’re suddenly bashful _now_.” I blush harder and he laughs, stepping towards me. I think he’s going to kiss me again, an idea I’m not entirely adverse to, but instead he pulls his hand out from behind his back where it had been and hands me a toothbrush.

            He smirks at my obvious surprise and I feel like a schoolboy with a crush.

            I step past him and into the bathroom, brushing my teeth and then gurgling water with the little paper cups near the sink. When I’m done I step out of the bathroom and smile up at Jared. He leans down to kiss me and when he does I shove the toothbrush into his hand and take a step back.

            He laughs. “You are such a dick.” And then he grabs me and pulls me towards him, holding me in place as his lips brush against mine. “You scared the shit out of me today, you know that?”

            “I’m sorry,” I whisper against his lips. But I’m not really listening to him. I feel sort of floaty and I’m afraid that if he stops kissing me for too long that feeling will dissipate so I push my lips against his.

            “All to apologize to a damn original,” he mutters and suddenly I don’t feel much like kissing anymore.

            I step back and he immediately starts to apologize.

            “I’m sorry, baby, it’s just…it was a really close call. It’s gonna take me a while to get over it.”

            I nod, but the floating sensation is gone and I need a few minutes to myself because I feel like I can’t breathe. “It’s fine, I’d just uh, really like a nap right now.” I rub my hand over my face so that I don’t have to see Jared’s frown. He’s both older and bigger than I am but somehow causing him to frown feels like kicking a basket of puppies.

            “Okay,” he says softly, “We just have to drop by the institution and grab your stuff but after that I can take you back to my place and you can sleep while I cook dinner.” Supposedly, doubles stay at the hospital for three days before their memory is wiped and then they’re sent back to the institutions until the Career Assignments Ceremony, which happens once a month. But it seems that if your sleeping with one of your doctors the rules just don’t apply to you.

            Jared leads me outside and to his car. It’s slim and silver and exactly the kind of car a doctor should have considering how much money they make. I think about commenting on it as I slide into the passenger seat but it occurs to me that Jensen I.C. has probably already seen it so any comment I make would just sound strange.

            He doesn’t turn on the radio while we drive and I don’t ask him to. My eyes follow a hovercraft as it buzzes across the sky and I can feel Jared shoot me concerned looks every once in a while but he never says anything. In fact he takes the car off of auto and begins driving manually, I assume to provide a distraction.

            But he never says anything. He’s probably thinking that after the memory wipe I’ll go back to normal. If that’s the case, he’s in for one hell of a surprise.

            The institution’s campus is miles wide, according to the Internet; most of them were simply remodeled and expanded college campuses. They stretch on for miles, holding almost all the children in the northern part of the state. All except for disabled or original children.

            I assume doubles live separately from un-cloned children but I can’t be certain and I know nothing else about the Intuition of Northern New Jersey.

            There’s a gate blocking the road entrance and a fence that appears to stretch along the entire campus. When we reach the gate Jared pulls out his ID card and hands it to the security guard, a beefy older man with a beard.

The man nods and presses a button on some sort of remote he’s holding. A few seconds later the gate slides open and we drive through.

            Jared stops the car in front of a building that has I.C. Housing in large silver block letters above its entrance. I’m hoping he’ll get out with me and take me to where my room, and apparently stuff, is but he doesn’t even unbuckle his seatbelt.

            “See you in a few,” he says, “just remember to keep your head down and not let any of the details about the exam spill, okay? I’d like to keep my job.” He smiles but it’s halfhearted.

            I climb out of the car and walk through the sliding door that leads into the building. There is no DNA test I have to get through or police officers lining every corner.

There’s a map on the wall near the entrance and it becomes clear that the each age group has a separate floor from Infants to Upperclassmen, which sounds like it would be the oldest group and is all the way at the top so I make my way there.

I get a little turned around and I hope Jared isn’t getting impatient, but I make my way to the ‘Boys’ section of the Upperclassmen Ward, taking the elevator to the fifth floor. The dorms have names digitally posted on the glass of the doors that lead into them. Two doubles per room and it appears to go in alphabetical order, which is lucky for me.

Jensen Ackles I.C. shares (or _shared_ ) a room with a boy names Jacob Abel. Both names are digitally displayed in formal white font.

I place my palm against the glass door but nothing happens. It’s then that I notice the small square object on the right side of the door: a scanner. Unlike my double, however, I never had a chip implanted in my wrist.

Pressing my palm against the scanner, just on the off chance that it’s meant for that rather than the chip, I close my eyes and pray an alarm of some sort doesn’t go off.

No alarm goes off when the scanner blinks red in refusal. I can, however, hear a small beeping noise coming from inside of the room as a sort of warning. But it’s a Wednesday at three in the afternoon and according to my parents, classes here go until at least five.

I run a hand through my hair, which the machine mistakes as me scanning again and I hear the faint beeping noise a second time.

I know that I’m on the edge of a breakdown and I need to figure out what to do before I give up and lose my shit in the hallway of a fucking institution.

Just as I’m about to go looking for someone who can open the door and come up with a reasonable excuse as to why I don’t have my chip, the door slides open and a boy my age with messy hair and bags under his eyes comes out.

“Look, whoever you are you got the wrong room.” He says rubbing his eyes.

I stand there open mouthed looking like an idiot until the boy takes his hands away from his eyes and then his mouth drops open as well.

“Jensen?” He asks, throwing his arms around me.  
            “Shh.” I quiet him. My double wasn’t supposed to be here any more than I was.

“Sorry, sorry,” the boy, probably Jacob, says as he pulls me into the dorm room. It’s very clinical with two white beds, a nightstand, a lamp and practically no other furniture. The walls are all interactive though, they aren’t being used now but each of them has the TouchCorp company logo in the top corner.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing here?” Jacob asks once the door slides shut. He’s still in his pajamas and his breath smells like vomit so I assume he’s taking a sick day.

“I, uh, I came to get my stuff, Jake.” I call him Jake because the way he just spoke to me made me doubt that he goes by something as formal as Jacob.

He plops down on one of the beds and throws out his arms dramatically. “Yeah, but, don’t they send, like, government people for that? I mean, you’re not supposed to see us until your memory’s been wiped.” He leans forward with a gasp, as if he’s just surprised himself. “You’re memory hasn’t been wiped yet, has it?”

His larger than life personality actually makes me chuckle. “No, my memory’s just fine thanks.”

I notice a large black duffel bag sitting on the otherwise empty bed and move toward it, pulling the strap over my shoulder.

“So what’s it like?” Jake asks.

“The test?”

“Yeah. What else?”

 _You mean you don’t know?_ But I manage to keep the thought to myself. Of course they didn’t know. They didn’t know for the same reason their memory was wiped after the exam. So no one felt guilty and started spreading rumors to the wrong people. Also, I suppose fear is a great motivator for paying attention in class.

At least, it’d worked for me.

“Sorry, can’t tell you. It’s against the law and whatnot.” I hoist the bag up off the bed and make my way towards the door.

“Tight ass,” Jake calls after me, and then he smirks, “I thought your _doctor_ was helping you with that.”

I turn around so fast that the duffel bag swings out and hits the door softly.

Jake seems to think it’s hilarious. He throws his head back and laughs. He looks like a little kid and it’s sort of endearing.

“Aw, Jenny’s still embarrassed about that. Come on, who else has the clearance to get you back in here. Of course it was Doctor Padalecki. Are you going to his house now?” I blush. “You are, aren’t you? God, you’re so lucky. I wish the doctor that’s prepping me for my exam was young and hot. I’m pretty sure she’s old enough to have already gone through menopause.” He lets out a shiver.

I back up so far that I slam against the door and it automatically slides open. It’s at this point that Jake sees my expression and decides to take sympathy on me.

“Well, I won’t keep you from your doctor. Go on; get out of here before you get caught. And tell Jared I say hi.” I nod furiously before turning around.

My steps down the hallway are fast and forceful and I’m almost to the elevator when Jake calls my name. I want to remind him to be quiet but I can tell from the guilty expression that he’s remembered just a second too late.

He mouths a silent sorry, before beginning to speak. “I just want to say that I, uh...” he looks around but no one else is here. “I’m really glad your okay, man.” It’s so sincere it’s almost sad. Jake was probably the closest thing my double had to a brother. Had to have been for my double to tell him about his secret and probably illegal relationship with his doctor. “We have to meet up when I get my own place. Okay?”

I nod mutely.

“See you around, Jensen Ackles I.C.”

“See you around, Jacob Abel I.C.”


	5. The Wiping

His apartment is one the thirty-first floor. It isn’t a penthouse, but it’s nice. It’s mostly white with the exception of the floor and the black leather couch.

The empty dishes and the coffee mug stains on the white granite of the coffee table as well as the blanket lying in a heap on the couch that faces the one of the interactive walls take away from the overall perfection, but they make the place almost endearing.

I’d still rather be at home.

Jared gives me a quick tour, leading me through the rooms, to the ‘master bedroom’ and then to the ‘guest room’ last. He then looks to me and I can tell that I’m being given a choice. The disappointment on his face when I place my duffel bag on the bed in the guestroom makes me feel worse than I should.

After that I excuse myself to go take a shower. His shower is similar to the one from the hospital except that the glass walls are touch-screens and I turn on music as I stand under the spray of hot water.

It’s something by Beethoven and I hope that it will calm me, or at least, drown out my sobs.

When I cry I cry for myself.

For the unfamiliar world I will have to grow accustomed to in order to survive, and for the chance that I won’t succeed-that I will die.

I cry for my family.

For the son they think they’ve lost and the tears they’ll shed and the grief they’ll feel, all of which will be in vain.

I cry for my double.

For someone whom I want so badly to hate because of his actions, when in reality I probably would’ve done the same thing.

And I cry for Jared.

For the boy he loves so very much, for a boy he’s lost without him even knowing it.

It’s a good half hour before I emerge from the shower. After I do, I dig through the duffel bag and pull on the clothes of a dead man, despite the fact that they itch against my skin.

Jared is on the couch. Television is playing on the wall across from him, holograms projected out into the center of the room. The holograms are much larger than the ones my parents had.

When he notices me he turns off the television and smiles softly. He leaves the room and comes back with a plate of steak and mashed potatoes for each of us. Glasses of water are already sitting on the coffee table.

I know for a fact that Jared has a dining room. I’ve seen the crystal chandelier dangling over the large round table. The fact that he’s choosing to eat on the couch, while watching television, is strange, but a good kind of strange. He is so very different from everything I thought that a wealthy exam doctor would be.

Different in every way except for a vendetta against originals.

I sit close to him and our thighs brush through our jeans as we eat. During my time in the shower I’d been able to think about some things long-term. The first is that if this is going to continue permanently I’m going to have to leave Jared sooner rather than later.

It’s not that he isn’t a nice guy, and he seems like a great boyfriend, but there’s no way I can lie to him about this, not for forever. Not unless after the wiping I pretend like they fucked up and I have no idea who I am at all. Which would lead to drawing more attention to myself than I’m interested in doing.

I have to leave him, and I’ve decided that right after career assignments I will.

But right now there are some things I want to know.

“Hey, Jared,” I say softly, just as he’s about to turn the television back on. He looks at me and puts the remote on the table, turning on the couch to give me his full attention. He really is a good boyfriend. “How do you do it? You’re job. How do you not feel guilty?”

He doesn’t look surprised. In fact, he looks like he’s been expecting this and I wonder just how much guilt my double felt about what he’d been going to do to me.

Because Jared was expecting this he seems to have an answer prepared.

“Jen, I’m not saying the government’s right in what they do, making clones as a scam to force kids into the institutions, it’s awful. And of course I feel guilty. And I want it to stop. If I could pick a new job, I would in a second, but that isn’t how it works. I want to help originals, and some other exam docs want to as well. But we can’t do anything from jail. The best thing to do is to keep our heads down, and when the time comes we fight the just and legal way.”

It sounds so simple. So matter of fact.

What he’s doing is a means to an end, a better end. Whether or not that justifies it is a debate for the ages and whether or not I agree is going to take a lot of thinking that I probably won’t get done until I take my next shower. But either way, he’s trying to do the right thing.

Still, some of things he said and did rub me the wrong way, “It’s just, the way you talk about them. You said ‘all for a fucking original’.”

He runs his hand though his hair, obviously displeased by the fact that I brought this up.

“I know, and I’m sorry if that offended you, I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t mean originals are less or anything, it’s just that…he was gonna die anyway, an apology seemed so inconsequential-especially since it almost got you killed.”

He’s so clearly distraught at the idea of my double’s death that even if I’d been planning on revealing the truth I couldn’t after that. Instead, I look down at the plate on my lap and move the potatoes around with my fork.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what?”

“All the stuff you do for me, all the shit you put up with…just, thank you.”

Jared had been sipping his glass but he puts it back on the table now and he leans forward in his seat.

“Jensen?”

“Yeah?” I feel goose bumps rise on my skin. I hope I know the answer to whatever question he’s asking.

“Why did you put your stuff in the guest room?” I meet his eyes. They’re hazel in color, though I’m pretty sure this morning they were light brown. There’s something in them that I don’t recognize, but it looks serious.

It looks like love.

It’s not for me but it feels so good to have it directed at me.

The only answer I can think to give is the honest one, partially honest, at least. There were a lot of reasons I didn’t put my things in the master bedroom but one of them was “I didn’t want to intrude.”

“Thank god,” he says.               

And then our lips are fused together. I feel like I’m on fire. It’s not like the soft sweet kisses from before. It’s pure electricity. For a long time I was worried about what was going to happen if Jared wanted to get intimate but I don’t feel worried anymore.

I couldn’t tell you if we got to the bedroom before or after we’d taken off each other’s shirts. All I remember is a jolt of pain and then an almost psychedelic rush.

Euphoria. Bliss. Whatever word you want to use, I’m sure it’s accurate.

I fall asleep with his arms around me, feeling the silk sheets rub softly against my back and bare legs. Jared is so warm that I don’t even need the blankets.

For a moment, I feel nauseous with guilt as I look down at his face, almost smiling even in sleep. His arm is heavy on my stomach. His chest is warm against my back.

I try not to think about how fake this all is. How Jared doesn’t give a damn about me, just who he thinks I am.

But for just a moment, just for a moment, I let myself pretend that there’s a person in the world who loves me.

***

I thought waking up with him would be awkward but it’s actually just as good as falling asleep. His skin is warm from sleep and sunlight pours into the room, giving it a golden glow.

“So, do you think you’d maybe want to stay in here from now on?” His tone is teasing but his eyes are serious and I kiss him for what has to be the sixth time this morning before nodding my response.

He rolls out of bed and, wearing nothing but a sheet, goes to cook breakfast. I sigh and move to the middle of the bed, flinging my arms out on either side of me so that I take up all of the available space.

Logically I know that getting close to Jared is a bad idea but emotionally I’m a train wreck and I need to feel something other than guilt and fear so badly that love, however much of a ruse it is, seems like a good alternative.

Things are beginning to look up and I’m starting to feel like there’s a very real possibility of things working out for me.

The only bump still left in the road is the wiping. Three days left to find some way around it or I’m going to be confused as all hell when I wake up, and I’ll probably end up giving myself away. The wiping will erase the entire day of the examination so that even doubles don’t remember that they cheated.

The other thing that’s supposed to happen that day is my chip getting removed from my wrist, which is a problem because there isn’t a chip to remove. Looking back, I’m thankful Jake never asked me why my chip hadn’t allowed me to enter the room, but I suppose finding out your best friend is alive takes precedence over seemingly unimportant questions.

Jared comes back in and we eat breakfast in bed. Matter of fact, we don’t leave bed for the next two days.

That’s when a simple statement snaps me out of the surreal dream world I’ve been living in a reminds me that in twenty-four hours I’m completely and totally fucked.

Two words. He doesn’t even really mean to say them, I can tell. But he doesn’t try to take them back either.

We’re curled up in bed watched the annual Hovercraft Races on television. His hand is rubbing smooth, warm circles on my back as I cheer on a team a little too enthusiastically, and then blush when I notice I’ve started yelling.

I expect Jared to scold me. To remind me that we have neighbors who are probably trying to sleep since it’s after eleven at night. Instead, he leans over and kisses my nose. That’s when he says it: “You’re different.”

I freeze. The words didn’t seem like an accusation but Jared doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who makes accusations loudly, or who yells. He seems like the kind who’d get angry in a soft way. Angry in a way that makes you want to cry. That hurts so much more, so much _deeper_ , than screaming.

            Clearing my throat, I begin to speak while playing awkwardly with my hands. “I’m sure that I’ll go back to normal after the wiping.” I hope the idea comforts him, even if it isn’t true, but at the same time I’m ridiculously sad that the man I’m lying to doesn’t like me as much as he liked my dead double.

            “I hope you don’t.” He thinks I don’t hear him. It’s spoken so quietly that I’m surprised I do. I don’t know what’s going to happen two days from now. I don’t even know what’s going to happen ten minutes from now. But I know that right now things are good. Right now I feel elated. So much so that if Jared knew what I was feeling, could see the golden fireworks sparking inside of my head, I’d be embarrassed.

            I thought he only loved me because of who he thought I was, but the idea that he might love _me_ -the boring original whose most exciting life event ever was crashing a motorcycle-is something I’d never dreamed to be a possibility.

            And as the holographic hovercrafts race I acknowledge, for the first time, that I want him to love me. I want _him,_ so much more than I wanted interactive walls when I was younger, maybe even more than I wanted to win the examination. I want Jared.

***

            Jared had used his sick days to spend time with me after my examination, but after missing three days of work in a row he has to go back. He’s helping a double prep for examination somewhere and I’m sitting in a very familiar waiting room all alone.

            When Doctor Tal enters I feel the same waves of anxiety that I felt the day of my examination, the only difference in her appearance is that her curly blonde hair has been pulled into a bun.

            She sees me and she stops in her tracks. Then she glances down at the glass pad she’s holding. It’s clear she didn’t actually look at who she was performing the wiping for ahead of time. When she looks back up at me her mouth is open and her eyes are wide. She most certainly isn’t pleased.

            “Jensen Ackles: Institutional Clone.” She reads it from the pad even though she already knows my name.

I stand and begin to move towards her when a familiar voice calls “Excuse me.”

And I really must be dreaming because when I turn around I’m face to face with my mother. She has bags under her eyes and she isn’t wearing makeup but she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and it takes everything I have not to wrap my arms around her and start sobbing. I whisper “Mom,” too low for her to hear before I remember that while she may be my mother, I am no longer her son.

“I’m Mrs. Ackles,” my mother goes on, hesitantly, “I’d just like a minute with…um.”

“Jensen,” Doctor Tal supplies.

My mother nods, repeating, “Jensen.” But when she says the name in reference to me her face holds the same expression as when she swallows something bitter.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” the doctor says, before hurrying out of the room.

My mother looks at me with tears in her green eyes before motioning for me to sit down. She sits across from me and my fingernails dig into the leather of the seat as I wait for her to begin. I’m not sure what I’m hoping for her to do. A part of me wants her to be angry with the boy who she thinks killed her son. A part of me wants her to pull him into a hug just so that I could feel it one last time. 

“You’re my son’s double,” she whispers, as though she’s astonished. I nod, unable to speak. “You’re so much like him, I mean obviously you are, but it isn’t just physically. The way you hold yourself, the way you…it’s like talking to a ghost.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

She laughs but tears are running down her cheeks. She places her hand over mine. “No, honey, _I’m_ sorry. So very sorry, you can’t even imagine…not just sorry for him, but for you as well. I should’ve fought with my husband. I should’ve insisted we put Jensen in the institutions. But I was selfish. I wanted to raise my son so badly. And I’ve ended up hurting the both of you.”

She pauses and chokes down a sob. I’m crying as well but it’s so silent and I’m so focused on her that I barely even notice. “I killed my son. I killed my baby.” Her hands come up to cup her mouth and she leans forward in her chair. I want to reach out to her but I am frozen. And even if I could reach out I’m paralyzed with the fear that she’ll reject me. And I know somewhere deep inside that that would hurt worse than dying.

“Just, just tell me,” her words are muffled but determined, “I know you probably couldn’t tell, I know you…don’t know him or me and I’m sorry you grew up without parents, so sorry, but could just tell me, if you think…my baby, was he…was he angry?” She closes her eyes. Her voice breaks when she speaks next. “Did he hate me?”

_Never. Never. Mom, I love you so much. And I’m so sorry I have to do this._

“I don’t know.” The words are hollow. I wipe my tears away and make certain no more come. “I’d like you to leave now, Mrs. Ackles.”

She looks surprised at my sudden change in attitude but if she stays any longer I’ll break. I’ll tell her and then her son really will be dead. I’m doing what I hope she would want me to do if she knew.

“Jensen?” She asks, her voice cracking.

“Leave!” This time it’s a command. And she rises slowly from her seat. _Please don’t leave me, mommy, please don’t leave me alone._ “Now!”

She scurries from the room, sobbing.

It’s about thirty seconds after she leaves that I start to scream. I pull my legs up onto the seat and I press my face into them and cry. Most of the sound is muffled but it’s loud enough for Alona to rush in.

She takes one look at me before grabbing me by the arm and yanking me to my feet. I’m still sobbing but her hand covers my mouth. She pulls me through the door and into the hallway. A couple of twists and turns and we’ve arrived at another doorway. She places her palm against the black door.

“Is he alright?” A nurse asks, walking by.

“Just a little nervous about the wiping, I’m afraid,” Alona responds with a forced frown. Then the Wiping Center greets her and she drags me into the room twisting the lock on the door after it’s closed.

The room is small, with a dentist-like chair in the middle and what looks like a beehive hair machine dangling from the ceiling.

I wipe my nose on the back of my sleeve and the look in her eyes shifts from angry to sympathetic. “God, I’m so sorry, sweetie.” She says softly and the entire world stops. It’s like the air around us is holding its breath until she goes on, “I _heard_ you call that woman ‘mom’, I _saw_ the way you reacted to her, it wasn’t hard to piece it together. You’re no double, are you?”

 

 

“What are you going to do?” I ask. There’s a strength in my voice that I’m rather proud of. I think back to Alona’s displeasure at my supposed death, what Jared said about other Exam doctors being against the Examination. And I hope with everything in me that she’ll let me live.

“Jensen, I’m so sorry this has happened to you. That test is…it’s inhumane.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “But if I don’t turn you in, I’m breaking the law. I’ll be sent to prison or harvested. And it’s just not worth it for a secret you probably won’t be able to keep.”

No. This can’t be happening. No way in hell have I come this far to lose now.

I’d written myself a note explaining everything and hidden it in my shoe hoping that when I woke up from the wiping a few hours from now I’d see it and read it before I did or said anything that gave me away. It had been a long shot of a plan and now I didn’t even have that small chance.

Alona presses a button on their earpiece she’s wearing and before I can think I grab a scalpel out of a set of drawers nearby. Alona isn’t looking at me and when she feels the cold metal object pressed against her throat she freezes.

This close to her, I can hear the voice coming from the other end of the call. “Hello?” It asks, concerned.

“Lie,” I hiss into Alona’s other ear. She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. “Jail or death, pick fast.” I’m starting to panic. What the fuck was I doing? Threatening the life of a doctor. Was I out of my mind?

What other option did I have?

“Hello,” Alona finally stutters.

“Everything alright, you called emergency services.”

“Yes, I um.” I press the scalpel deeper into he neck, reminding her it was there, as if she had forgotten. “I saw a rat in the Cleaning Room, it’ll have to be shut down and sterilized.”

I close my eyes, praying the lady on the other end of the call buys into the doctor’s lie. For once I’m in luck.

“Oh dear, that’s going to put us behind. I’ll have to call the Career Ceremony Committee and let them know some children won’t finish their exams in time for this month. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

“No problem,” Alona chokes out. The line clicks off.

I’m not expecting the elbow in my stomach and it forces me to jump back. I hold the scalpel out in front of me protectively. I’d left the top drawer open when I grabbed the scalpel and she yanks the drawer out all the way, holding it in front of her like a shield.

We circle each other for a few minutes. I wait until she’s standing just in front of the chair, then I lunge forward. She steps back in surprise and then trips, landing in the chair. The drawer she was holding falls to the floor with a loud clatter. I hope no one outside is close enough to hear it.

Alona starts to scream but I climb on top of her and cover her mouth before she can. I feel her tongue working furiously against my palm, teeth moving up and down in an attempt to bite me.

I drop the scalpel on the floor and with my other hand I reach up and pull the beehive-shaped machine down over Alona’s head. She’s beating into my sides with her tiny fists but she isn’t strong enough to knock me off of her. I set the dial on the machine to a month, which is the longest amount of erasable time. Then I grab Alona’s fist, use both my hands to pry it open, before forcing her to press her palm against the machine, activating it.

I scramble off of Alona just as the electricity starts to shoot from the beehive machine and into Alona’s head.


	6. The Harvest

Her entire body freezes, but the pain is in her eyes as they move back and forth at a rapid rate. I’m not sure what about the electric current holds her body in place but I thank god for it because otherwise I would’ve had to endure the electric currents right along with her in order to keep my hand over her mouth and stop her from screaming.

And who knows what effect that would’ve had one me?

As the machine works I pick the drawer up and slide it back into its slot. I also pick up all of the scattered and sundry items that had fallen out of it, except for a surgical mask, which I shove into my back pocket as an idea begins to form.

When the machine stops shooting out jolts of blue electricity I touch it once quickly to make certain it’s safe, and then I lift it away from the chair. Theoretically, I have two hours to figure out how to clean up this mess before she wakes up.

Slowly but surely I slip Alona out of her scrubs, leaving her in just a bra, underwear and sneakers. I slide the scrubs over the clothes I’m already wearing. I also take Alona’s ID card, which she keeps on a lanyard around her neck. It is identical to the one Jared showed the guard at the institution.

I try to think the situation through; I know for a fact that there are cameras in the halls and waiting rooms, but not in operation rooms, examination rooms, or patient living rooms. And the tapes will only be watched if the government has a reason to watch them. It takes less than three minutes for me to come up with a plan.

I take the scalpel out of the drawer where I’d returned it to and I pull the surgical mask over my face.

I walk up to the sliding door and as soon as it opens I place the scalpel in its way so that it cannot close completely. Then I watch the door slide seemingly shut and I take off. My walk is brisk. My head is down.

After a few turns I come upon an empty gurney and all it takes is a quick visit to one of the empty patient rooms to steal a white sheet.

The hallways are mostly empty and the people that are there are distracted, entering information into pads or walls. I find my way back to the black door. I’m able to nudge it open with my toe and pull the gurney inside. Then I bend down and move the scalpel out of the way so that the door shuts properly.

Alona is light, easy to lift. I place her on the gurney and pull the sheet up so that it covers all of her. I do one last sweep of the room before sticking the scalpel into my pocket and pushing Alona out into the hallway.

I’d like to just leave her somewhere and let her wake up, but with a month missing from her timeline and me being probably the only wiping she had scheduled for today it just isn’t an option anymore.

Someone would put the pieces together

My skin is crawling while I search for the elevator I’m looking for. It takes ten minutes of searching and I’m starting to panic by the time I find it. I wait until no one is around and then I pull Alona’s hand out from under the sheet and press her palm against the door.

“Welcome to Harvest Elevator One, Doctor Alona Tal.”

There is another doctor in the elevator, with his back to me. For a brief moment my heart stops and I think that it’s Jared but the man that turns around is shorter with dark hair and his scrubs are a doctor color than the one’s I wear. We share plastic smiles. As real as they can be with the knowledge of where we’re going heavy in the air around us.

I’ve never been to the harvest center but it is abundantly clear that it is not a place for smiles. It is not a place for laughter. It is not a place for originals, not living ones, anyway.

“You new here?” He asks. I pull the surgical mask down.

“Started yesterday.”

“Well, don’t worry, you’ll be off Harvest Duty soon enough. They stick all the new Docs with the crap jobs.”

“Thanks,” I mutter. My stomach churns. “How about you? You sound like you’ve been here for a while. What are you doing in the Harvest Room with the grunts?”

The elevator comes to a halt. The hallway it leads into, unlike the hallways upstairs, lacks the expensive white touchscreen walls. The halls are a dark blue color with doors that lead to surgical rooms on either side. There are large glass windows and I look into to rooms as I wheel by. The man in the elevator disappears into one of them.

Most of the rooms are empty with shiny metal tables and bright yellow lights. But one of the rooms is in use, and I regret looking in the moment I do.

These downstairs surgeons wear white scrubs and there are three of them around the table, as well as two nurses. One turns as I walk by and I catch two alarming details out of the corner of my eye.

One: The stream of blood on the front of his scrubs and the slimy, snakelike, intestines that he’s placing into a glass box, held by one of the nurses.

Two: The face of the original. It’s one I recognize. His eyes are closed, his head tilted back but he has the same features, though slightly less red and puffy, than the very sickly Jacob Abel I came upon a few days ago at the institution.

Looks like he won.

At first I’m not sure how I feel about that, but then yet another surgeon steps aside and I see his ripped open stomach. It’s skin had been cut in the shape of a cross. The four flaps of skin have had hooks inserted into each of them. They have been pulled back and stretched so that the hooks can attach to the end of the table and the inside of his body is clearly visible and easily accessible.

I wander if Jared has ever been one of those surgeons. I wander if Alona has.

The sight has actually made what I’m about to do easier. I push the stretch to the end of the hallway and through the double doors. They are the only non-automatic doors I’ve seen so far in this building. They are a thin plastic and flap behind me.

The doors lead to a large gray room. The people that work here are not doctors. Janitors, mostly, I think. It looks like a boiler room, and the drenching heat contributes to that affect. However, the 5-foot square of metal that is plastered to the center of the far wall is not usually found in a boiler room.

I wheel the stretcher up to it. No one pays me any attention; this must be a common occurrence. Unless I’m wrong and that metal box doesn’t lead to where I think it does, in which case I’m screwed.

There’s a tiny metal handle on the bottom of the square and I pull it up. The burst of heat that hits my face makes me cough. I can’t see down the metal shaft very far because it is dark except for when flames shoot out every couple of seconds, so close that if I stuck my arm down the shaft its fiery mouth would gobble me up.

Sweat is collecting on my brow and it has nothing you with the temperature.

Sliding my arm under Alona I lift up in one swift motion. She feels heavier than she did before. I’m starting to regret this plan, I’d been regretting since I thought of it but the thoughts I pushed away before are breaking the damn and flooding in now.

It’s hard to breathe.

_She deserves it._

No one deserves this.

_Better her than you._

And isn’t that what it comes down to. Putting my life before her hers, granted, hers is the life of a murderer, or at the very least a assistant to a government of murderers. I think back to Jake, back to his original lying torn open on the table while they emptied him with a cool indifference as though he were a commodity.

Alona had done that to him. Had almost done that to me.

I slide her into the shaft, sheet and all. Some invisible force doesn’t automatically pull her down as I had, for some reason, hoped. Instead I have to keep pushing her further down. Her legs and feet as engulfed in flames and I wander what I would see if I were to pull her back out.

I don’t dare find out.

One last hefty push and the only thing left out of the fire are the strands of blonde hair that trail behind her body. Slowly the flames reaches and they blacken and curl up until they are nothing but ash.

I shut the door and wheel the gurney out of there. I keep my eyes on the elevator door, not daring to glance into any of the surgical rooms.

This is the second person that has died so I can live.

How many more will there be? Is there some sort of cut off? A line I’m not willing to cross?

I feel as though I’ve already crossed all of them.

Being back on the air-conditioned floor with the white walls and glass doors actually makes me sigh in relief. It feels almost friendly in comparison to the harvest center. I duck into one of the uninhabited hospital rooms and pull of Alona’s scrubs before throwing them into the hamper that resides in the corner of the room.

My next problem is the uncertainty of what will happen when no one can find Alona. I pull out her ID card and trace the edges with my fingers. If they know she never left the hospital then it’ll be easier for them to figure out what happened to her than I’d like. They’ll review the videos and they’ll see us enter the wiping room and her exit on a gurney with me pushing it.

So she has to check out, or rather, I have to find a way to check out for her. It’ll probably take a higher security palm print to get all the way to the doctor exits, and I no longer have a palm that’ll allow me to do that.

But I know someone who does.

There was rarely more than one examination a day and since Jake’s has already happened that mean’s Jared’s free. I step out of the hospital room. There had to be a doctor’s longue somewhere. I walk out of the room, still a little baffled by the fact that I haven’t gotten caught yet.

The doctor’s longue is nowhere to be found. Forty minutes of stumbling around and nothing. But I did find the locker rooms, where Jared will undoubtedly go to get his car keys and wallet.

I’m hoping he keeps his promise to come home as soon as possible because eventually I’m going to get in trouble for being in here unsupervised. Two doctors exit and enter within the next hour and neither spares a second glance at me. Finally, Jared shows up in his soft blue scrubs, his hair pulled back in a ponytail.

He pauses when he sees me.

“Jensen, what the hell are you doing here?” He doesn’t sound angry, per se, just shocked. “You aren’t supposed to be in here. And shouldn’t you still be asleep?”

_Oh yeah, about that…_

“Just woke up. Wanted to see you.” I jump up and kiss him hard. As we kiss I slip the card out of my pocket and into his under the pretense of wrapping my arms around him. It takes a frightening moment or two of blind searching but eventually I pull out his card and shove it in my pocket.

There’s no reason he should notice the switch and nobody checks to make sure the card matches up with its owner, not at the hospital exit. I just have to make sure to get rid of Alona’s card as soon as he gets home. And the hospital will think he forgot to check out, went out the front way. It’s happened before, he forgot the day of my examination. It’s plausible he’d forget again the day of my wiping.

Then I pull away, “I’ll see you at home.” I exit the building as quickly as possible and take the train home.

***

 

            “So I won, huh?” I say when Jared gets home, flashing him a small smile. He’d told Alona to tell me his address after the wiping so I assume that’s how he thinks I knew where his apartment was.

I’ve gotten better at this lying thing than I’m comfortable with.

            “Looks like,” he responds, leaning down to kiss me from where I sit on the couch. “What was that stunt at the hospital?”

“Just wanted to s-see you.” I stutter, “Is it a crime to wanna see my boyfriend.”

            Jared shrugs but doesn’t ask anything further.

            “I like your house, I tell him, pretending to look around, as though I don’t remember the nights we’ve spent together, as though the wiping worked. “Anything exciting happen during the exam?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” He calls from his bedroom, where he’d gone to change straight after he’d said hello.

He comes back out in frayed jeans and a shirt with the periodic table on it. I chuckle when I see the shirt. For a hot guy, he really is a dork.

“And I know just how we’re going to celebrate your win.”

I force the smile to fall from my face and I push my curiosity back. I remember how many times Jared mentioned my double feeling guilty and while the wiping may have supposedly erased his memory of cheating, he still knows what happens to exam losers and I doubt he’d be happy about his original being dismembered.

“I don’t really feel much like celebrating, Jare.”

He frowns and I feel a surge of guilt. If this is how making him frown feels I have no idea how I’ll get through telling him his boyfriend’s dead.

“Don’t be like that, Jen. I know you feel bad about him dying, but isn’t your fault. Plus, I’ve already bought the tickets and it’s rude to refuse a gift. What would your mother say?” He freezes after he speaks, realizing what he’s just said. Doubles don’t have mothers, not like the other children at the institutions do. Not like Jared did. A mother and a father to send him a present on his birthday and visit him on Christmas. He winces and so do I. It isn’t the first time I’ve felt sympathy for my double. Matter of fact, I feel so much guilt for so many different things that I could drown in it. “Sorry, Jen.” His voice is a whisper.

I wipe my eyes. I didn’t have to fake the emotion that the mention of my mother evoked.

“S’okay,” I mutter before clearing my throat. “What are the tickets for?”

“The local Hovercraft races.” He’s biting his lip. He looks like a child waiting to be admonished. So very _young_. I want to tell him that I’m not angry, that it’s okay. I want to tell him that he didn’t hurt my feelings because I did have a mother and though she never instilled in me the particular lesson that he mention, she was a damn good one.

“I’ve never been before,” I offer. I smile up at him, though my eyes are still wet. “Thank you.”

He looks almost surprised that I’ve thanked him. The same way he looked my very first night at the apartment when I thanked him for putting up with me. My double, it seems, lacked manners. Or, more likely, had a strong sense of entitlement. Doubles were always successful, not just in the institutions but afterwards in their jobs. The government made certain of it-it was their way of proving a point.

Jared sits down next to me on the couch and pulls me close to him. He whispers a warm “You’re welcome,” in my ear before reaching down and picking up the remote.

I switch the cars when he’s asleep that night and I throw Alona’s into the incinerator trashcan.

***

The thank you I gave him was nowhere near adequate and I realize that when we arrive at the arena. We sit in the stands almost all the way at the top, 453 feet up according the map we we’re handed when we arrived. I am wearing a hat to support the home team _The Sparrows_ , but Jared has gone all out. He wears not only a hat but a shirt supporting the team as well and his face has been painted black and blue.

I’ve seen him watch races before and he never seemed all that invested in any of the teams but he most definitely seems like the type to use any excuse to yell very loudly and wear face-paint.

Every time I look at him it makes me smile.

Our team’s hovercrafts are shaped like eggs lying on their sides with a windshield and a motor underneath them. They are black with a single blue stripe on each side and the racers all wear black jumpsuits and helmets.

We look much more intimidating than the other team’s red and yellow color scheme. Though Phoenix’s are admittedly cooler birds than sparrows, aside from the fact that they’re fictional.

So _The Sparrows_ and _The Phoenixes_ get into their hovercrafts, which are still on the ground. And the first two come to life. They raise slowly off the ground, the motors make a loud whipping noise and cause all of the dried leaves on the field below them to scatter as if pushed by some invisible wind.

The crafts rise until they’re about level with Jared and I and Jared cheers but it gets lost amongst the chorus of other sounds from the ground.

A big, green, holographic number three is projected into the sky just in front of where both hovercrafts are idling. The three turns into a two, then a one, and then a large ‘Go!’ that both hovercrafts slice through as they begin to race.

When they drive past us Jared laughs and the wind the crafts have created nearly lock my hat off, making me laugh as well. And I look at him and he looks at me and his large grin becomes a smaller, more secretive smile, and we kiss.

I wish I could somehow record this moment. Snapshot is for a later, lonelier time. For after Career Assignments when I tell him. When he knows.

But what purpose will him knowing possibly serve. It will hurt him. It will hurt me. It will help no one.

Finally I break the kiss and my hand comes up to cup Jared’s cheek.

“Are you happy?” I ask, holding my breath.

He looks at me with what’s close to concern in his eyes before he leans down and kisses me again. It chaste. A soft peck. Nothing like the heat of our previous kiss. But it’s a promise. It’s an answer.

I’m smiling even before he leans in and whispers the word “Yes.”


	7. The Assignment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are appreciated. I love hearing about any thought on characters, the plot, or any ideas for the future. 
> 
> Thank you, and happy reading.

            The air is laden with a contagious nervousness and I have to restrain myself from biting my nails. I didn’t think it would matter to me, which job I was assigned, especially since it would be based off the test scores and achievements of my double, having no reflection on myself whatsoever. But I can see Jared sitting in the ‘family’ section of the room and I’ve realized that I want him to be proud.

            When he notices me looking at him he gives me a dorky half-wave, which I return.

            “Guess who didn’t die,” a sing-songy male voice chirps from right next to my ear.

            I jump, and turn around so quickly I nearly bump into a few people. The boy looks a lot better than the last time that I saw him. His eyes are brighter and his sandy colored hair has been combed back.

            “Jake,” I say, surprised.

            I’d done my best not to think about what I’d seen at the Harvest Center and so the possibility of seeing Jake I.C. never crossed my mind. I look him over and as I do I can’t help but flashback to that blue, sterile room and that cold metal table and a boy that looked just like the one standing in front of me, only with his stomach wide open and empty.

            “The one and only,” Jake slings an arm around my shoulder, “And no need to look so shocked to see me, man. I don’t remember my exam but I’m sure that I kicked my original’s ass. You could at least _act_ like you thought I was gonna win.”

            When I don’t respond he shakes his head and pulls his arm away, “You’re lack of faith astounds me. Can I at least get a hug? Or some sign that you’re happy my organs are still inside of me.”

            And I do hug him because I am happy to see him, despite the all of the reasons I probably shouldn’t be.

            “I see your doctor came to cheer you on,” Jake acknowledges with a fleeting sadness in his eyes. His family is probably still mourning the loss of their son. They probably don’t give a damn about his double. For the first time I consider the possibility that originals get the better end of the deal. “He’s gotten even hotter since I last remember seeing him.”

            I snort.

            That’s when the buzzing of the microphone clicks on and all of the lights except for the ones up on stage dim. There are a couple hundred of us standing in lines in front of the stage, which is taller than even Jared so that everyone can see.

            The Governor of New Jersey, Jeffrey Morgan, steps out on stage, clean-shaven and dressed in a suit and tie. Next to him is the state’s labor executive, Samantha Ferris, who has a glass pad in her hand and a bored smile on her face.

            Morgan steps up to the podium on the left side of the stage. The spotlight is shining directly on his and he squints before reciting the same speech he gives every month.

            “Welcome, graduates, family, friends, to the Career Assignment Ceremony.” A practiced pause, which is filled with applause from the crowd. “Today is arguably the most important day of your young lives. This is the day when you will find out what profession you will have for the rest of your adulthood.” Another pause. Another Applause. “As you all know this assignment will be based off of all of the time you’ve spent at your various Institutions.  Your test scores. Your courses. Your extracurricular activities. I hope, for your sakes, you have spent your time wisely.”

            “Mrs. Ferris here will announce a career and then will, one at a time, call out the names of all who have been selected for it. When your name is called, you will make your way up the right side of the stage. A certificate will be handed to you. And then you will exit on the left side.”

            At this point, a small mouse-like man walks out on stage, dragging behind him, a cart full of certificates.

“Are we ready to begin?” Morgan asks, flashing the crowd a white smile.

There were a variety of careers and they were called in alphabetical order. Accountant. Administrator. Advertising Executive. Aircraft Pilot. I’d been kind of hoping to get called for that last one.

There were many undesirable careers as well. Things like Cashier or Garbage man or Plumber. But people cheered every time someone’s name was called, be it out of pride, respect or pity.

            When Doctor went by and my name wasn’t called I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief because I didn’t want to be a doctor but disappointment because I thought that that was the career that would’ve made Jared happiest.

            Thinking of Jared reminds me of what I have to do tonight and I sigh softly. I’ve thought about it for the last few weeks: how’ll I’ll do it, what I’ll say, why I have to leave him.

            ‘Jacob Abel’ got called to be a mechanic, and though it wasn’t the most glamorous of careers it made him smile. So I leaned over, whispered, “I’m proud of you” and clapped him on the back before he made his way towards the stage.

            When he got back into the crowd he was crying a little. Maybe because he was overjoyed that he wasn’t doomed to live a life picking up trash, maybe because that was the first time anyone had ever told him they were proud of him.

            Either way I was warned, in no uncertain terms, that if I were to mention the tears to anyone else or even to him ever again he would take a sander to my balls.

            The ceremony was shorter than I thought it would be. Not time-wise, it was three hours, just like they’d said it would be, but the anticipation was so nerve-wracking that the constant impatience actually made the time pass faster.

            More careers were called. Naval Recruits. Network Technician. Painters. Pharmacists. Radio Broadcasters. I’m starting to think I’ll get stuck with like, Waste Disposal Operative, when all of a sudden my name echoes through the room. Well not my name, but Jensen Ackles: Institutional Clone’s name. It’s somewhere in the ‘T’s or maybe in the beginning of the ‘U’s, I hadn’t been paying very close attention. Damn.

            I walk to the stage and up the stairs in what can only be described as a daze. The man hands me my certificate and I have to refrain from looking at it until I’ve shaken the Governor’s hand and returned to the crowd.

            The lights are warm and my nervousness already had me sweating so much so that I’m worried my hands will make my certificate wet. I’m so unused to holding things made of paper, I’m afraid I’ll rip it or something.

            All the while I’m trying to tell whether the applause for me stemmed from pride or pity. Thinking over what my options could’ve possibly been: Therapist, Train Conductor, maybe an Usher. I’m standing next to Jake when I unravel the rolled up certificate and the read the big bold word:

            Teacher.

            The paper specifies other things. I’ll be teaching at the Institute of Northern New Jersey, the same one my double attended. I’ll be teaching History, more specifically, the History of the United States, to 14 though 16-year olds.

            Teaching wasn’t the job I thought I’d get. It wasn’t even a job I thought I wanted. But now that I’ve been assigned it the thought actually makes me smile and I send a silent thank you to my double for doing well in school. The thought that an original will be teaching at an institution makes me feel giddy. Like it’s an inside joke only I know. The few originals that are still around are usually only here because their doubles got sick and passed away or something along those lines, they tend to get the shitty jobs.

            An original teaching children was almost unheard of.

            I look back down at the paper. It states that I will be digitally mailed my curriculum, which I then have two months to learn and prep for, during which time, the state will provide me with compensation for the time I cannot work.

            Then, I teach. As long as I do my job well I will have it for the rest of my life. If I don’t do it well I will be reassigned to a low-level job, but I intend be a fantastic teacher. To prove to everyone, myself included, that an original is just as smart as a double. Even if they don’t know I’m proving it.

            I look over at Jared. He winks at me and all the nervousness I’d had before fades. This is probably the only event in my life, as of recent, that couldn’t have gone better.

            After the Governor leaves and the last jobs have been called the lines of the newly employed disband and children run to hug their families. Or allow themselves to sob into their hands at the realization that for the next fifty or so years they will be doing something they hate.

            I rush over to Jared, dragging Jake behind me and trying to distract him from the fact that he has no one to share his news with. I try to tell Jared with my eyes that he needs to acknowledge Jake’s accomplishment too because I want him to have people who are proud, but Jared doesn’t need to be told.

As soon as we arrive he kisses me quickly and then gives Jake a put on the back. “Congrats guys! A mechanic and a teacher are damn good jobs.”

Jake smiles and I can tell he’s biting back tears again. If it were anyone else I’d mock him or her but I just can’t bring myself to mock someone who is so obviously embarrassed.

After a few moments Jared leaves us to go get his car, saying something about traffic being a bitch.

I walk Jake to the train just outside the Career Center and we stand there awkwardly for a few moments without any idea of what to say. We exchanged each other’s digital codes on the walk their so that we can contact each other. It seems as though there’s nothing left for us to say.

Finally Jake says, “Good luck with your doctor, Jensen. He seems like a good guy.”

“He is.”

“Well, you deserve a good guy, so I hope things work out for you.” I really didn’t deserve him but I kept my mouth shut. “I’ll see you around, bro.”

I nod and we hug each other tightly before he boards the train and it shoots off through the tubes that wind like spider webs above the city.

A few minutes later a car pulls up and I climb inside. I’m staring out the window when I ask him “Do you think teaching is a good job?” He doesn’t answer at right away.

“Do you think it will make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes I think it’s a job.”

I think about starting to tell him, here and now, that I’m leaving. But that’s when I notice he isn’t using autopilot. He’s actually driving. He already had the way home programmed into his car so I have no idea why he’d risk manual driving.

“Aren’t we going home?” I want to go home. My suit itches and though Jared looks extremely handsome in his own suit I’d like to get him out of it as soon as possible. One last time, before I have to go. The thought makes me wistful.

“Actually, no. I have somewhere else I want to take you first.”

The buildings we pass and turns we make soon begin to feel vaguely familiar but I still don’t remember why that is or where I was going when I passed them the first time. It’s half an hour before we pull into the parking lot of a stadium.

 _The Sparrows_ Stadium is empty and when Jared and I exit the car and I ask why we’re here he doesn’t answer. He simply walks up to the entrance and pulls out his ID card, swiping it though the slot next to the door.

It reminds me of the Harvest Center, and I push the thought away.

The double doors part and all of the lights in the stadium, which had been off, turn on simultaneously; lighting up the field in a way the sun can no longer do since its setting was twenty minutes ago.

Jared’s face doesn’t give away his emotions but the way his hands are shaking conveys nervousness and I fight the irrational fear that this is some sort of trap. That he’s figured out my secret and whatever we’re doing here—in an empty stadium in the dark of night—is going to end with me in handcuffs, or worse, dead.

I pull absentmindedly on my tie as Jared places his large hand on the small of my back and leads me into the arena. Feeling grass under my feet is a strange and unfamiliar sensation and I kind of want to bend down and run my hands over the green surface.

Jared stops me in the center of the arena and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Close your eyes.” The words are spoken so softly I barely hear them. I follow his instructions and bite back my fear. If I’m wrong, which I most likely am, I don’t want to alert Jared to my unease.

“Now open them and look up.”

I do. And what I see, joining the stars in the night sky takes my breath away. If it weren’t for Jared’s arms around me I certainly would’ve crumbled to the ground.

The font is different than that of the large green ‘Go’ that had been projected into the sky during the hovercraft race. These words are white and in script, long flowing letters that dance with the stars:

Jensen, Will You Marry Me?

A feel lips press a soft kiss to the back of my neck and then Jared’s arms let go of me and he comes around to stand in front of me.

A smile paints his handsome face but he looks terrified. He takes both of my hands and begins to speak a speech he’s quite obviously prepared.

“Jensen, I know it’s only been a few months and I know that this is a big commitment. This doesn’t mean we have to married now, or even in a year from now, or ever, if that’s not something you want. This is a promise. You’re young, and so am I. And maybe things will change and maybe we won’t be forever, I don’t know, I can’t see the future. But I know that right now, I _want_ forever, with you. So what I’m asking you today is if you want that same thing with me.”

He lets go of my hand and takes a small box out of his pocket. The ring is silver with beautiful golden swirls etched into it.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I didn’t think I’d ever live long enough to hear the word “Jensen, will you marry me?” But here they are, an endearing nervousness coloring his voice and tiny jewelry box being held up in both of his big hands.

And the answer is yes. Yes with everything I have. But Jared doesn’t want to marry me, not really, and my tears of joy mix with tears of sorrow. I can’t say yes. I can’t make a promise with him at the same time I’m lying to him.

I’m leaving him. Tonight, I’m leaving him.

I look down at him. He’s crying too. His eyes are puffy and red and on any other guy I’d think it was ugly but on him…

“Yes.” The word spills out. It is a mistake. I know it the moment Jared grins and wraps his arms around me. I know it by the sickness churning in my stomach. It is a mistake. The only mistake I’ve ever made that I can’t quite bring myself to regret.


	8. The Chip

Two months later its time for the first day of work. Jared is dropping me off before driving to the hospital and them I’m taking the train home. We are starting with the American Revolution, an event that took place about half a century ago, which is unfortunate because kids don’t like to pay attention to anything that happened more than a decade ago, once you’ve crossed the hundred years mark you tend to lose them completely.

Or at least, it was true of me growing up.

Every time my mother brought up the first and second World Wars I would zone out. The only one I ever paid attention to is the third. And even then, it wasn’t much attention.

            The classroom is more like a lecture hall with rows of seats, each higher than the last, and a long interactive table in front of each row. I have a glass pad and a stylus that I can use to manipulate it. Whatever is displayed on the pad is also displayed on the wall behind me.

            As the children file in I sit on my desk, fiddling with my engagement ring. I feel both giddy and guilty every time I look at it.

The students enter slowly and in small increments, like drops in a bucket of water, but they are all here by the time the bell rings. There are about a hundred of them and they take up almost all of the seats.

During my two weeks of prep I’d watched several lectures from other teachers and I did my best to mimic them. I talked for about forty minutes in total, lecturing and answering questions. I showed two short video clips and assigned a couple of reading questions from the online textbooks.

All in all, it was a good day.

***

Jared’s apartment has now become ‘our’ apartment. Now, legally, two people reside here. I don’t make quite as much money as Jared but we split the rent and electricity costs and whatnot. 

I’ve been saving up my extra money to buy I car. Parents don’t usually teach originals to drive but after the disastrous motorcycle incident my father had decided it would be a good idea for me to learn. Thank god he did, because at the institutions kids are taught how to drive at like, sixteen, so Jared’s assuming I already know how.

Everything seems to be falling into place.

We have a routine now. We wake up together. Jared drops me off. I take the train home at five and Jared drives home at seven. He cooks breakfast. I cook dinner. We each make our own lunch, or go out. We aren’t married yet. Probably won’t be for a very long time. But it seems like we are.

The only times I think about the dark parts of the past is when I see a report about Alona’s disappearance on television, or when Jared asks me if I’m certain everything was normal at the wiping, or when he mentions a time from before my double was dead and I smile as though fondly reminiscing alongside him.

I take a shower after I get home and put two steaks on the grill. Jared arrives just in time for dinner and we sit down together on the couch. We’re half way through a movie about espionage that Jared insists is mind-blowing but I actually think is kind of cliché when his phone rings.

He says a quick sorry before disappearing into the bedroom and I take the opportunity to steal the rest of his mashed potatoes.

It’s ten more minutes before he comes out with his jacket in his hand. It’s ironic in a twisted sort of way that the one time I don’t worry is the time that I should.

“Hey, I’m really sorry Jensen but I’ve gotta go back to the hospital.”

I slide my leftover food onto his plate, he usually eats twice as much as me anyway, and then I slide my empty plate under his full one. “Is everything alright?”

He sighs and looks at the door before looking at me, as though he isn’t sure whether or not he should tell me. _That’s_ when I start to worry.

“It’s probably nothing,” he assures as he sits down on the couch. The way he sits makes me uncomfortable. He doesn’t lean back and relax like he usually does. He doesn’t spread his arm out on the back of the couch so that if I lean back all the way it’ll be around my shoulders. He sits on the edge, straight up, muscles tense. “The man who received your original’s arm after being in a car crash is complaining about something. He’s claiming, well it isn’t possible, but he’s claiming that there’s a chip in your originals arm and since he travels between countries a lot he needs the chip removed before he’s allowed on a plane.”

The words are said in a rush, pushed out, leaving Jared panting for breath.

“Anyway,” he goes on, “I’ll be home in a few hours, just need to prove that he’s mistaken.” He kisses me on the cheek and then gets up.”

I can’t bring myself to move or to make a sound. _A chip_. I hadn’t thought twice about my double having a chip, that that might cause problems with international travel.  What were the odds?

Well, then again, what had the odds that been that my ridiculous plan was actually going to work? It made sense that something would go wrong.

“Bye Jen,” Jared calls casually, halfway out the door.

That snaps me out of it and before I can stop myself I call “Wait!”

I hate that the voice inside of my head screaming that Jared and I were a mistake was right. I hate that I didn’t listen to it. I twirl my engagement ring around my finger hoping that even when he breaks it off he doesn’t ask for it back. I don’t think I could remove it without crying.

Jared turns around, shutting the door. “What is it, Jen?”

I shut my eyes. There’s a heartbeat thumping sound that seems to be back dropping this scene.

“Do you,” I begin, trying to figure out a way to justify myself. Trying to find a way to say this without simply blurting it out. “Do you remember when I told you that I’d probably go back to normal after the wiping and you said that you hoped I didn’t. I heard you even though you didn’t think that I did.” Jared nods absently, slowly moving closer to me. “Just remember that, okay?”

“But, how do _you_ remember that? You’re memory was wiped.”

I shake my head. Tears prickle at my eyes. “No, it wasn’t.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t? Jensen, what the fuck is going on? Why does your original have a double’s chip in his arm?”

My tears choke me for a moment and I keep shaking my head. I can feel Jared’s growing frustration building up like a big ball of energy.

It’s the hardest sentence I’ve ever said in my life and everything inside of me is begging me to lie, but I’m sick of lying. This has gone too far; hurt more people than it’s helped.

“That arm doesn’t belong to an original.”

It takes him a moment before he really gets it. Before he makes the connection. If the dead boy isn’t an original than he’s a double. And if he’s a double then I’m an original. I want to take it back. Pluck the words right out of the air and hide them away deep in the depths of my mind.

He’s shaking his head. Crying silent tears.

“No.” He says.

“I’m sorry.” I say.

“No.”

He keeps shaking his head for a few more moments before he bends down, picks up the coffee table and slams it against the wall shattering the table and leaving a large crack in the smooth white surface we used to watch television on.

My mind flashes:

Watching hovercrafts racing on the television.

Watching them race in real life.

Sitting in that arena and asking Jared if he was happy.

Standing in the center of that arena as he got down on one knee.

The nights together. The mornings after. The kisses on the cheek before he drops me off at work. And I’m desperate to take my words back. To _g_ o back. Because I didn’t appreciate those things properly. I didn’t treat our last kiss as if it was our last kiss and I just want a chance to do it again because to truth it, I don’t even remember when out last real kiss was.

An hour ago, when he got home from work? Was that on the mouth, or the cheek? I don’t remember. I just want to remember.

His hands are bleeding from the pieces of shattered glass that have lodged themselves in his skin. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re lying!” He accuses, pointing harshly at me. “You’re not dead! He’s not…Oh my God. Oh my—“

It appears I was wrong all those nights ago when I assumed Jared wasn’t the yelling type.

He runs both hands through his hair, and when he looks at them and sees the strands of hair clinging to the red sticky substance. Its like he notices the blood for the first time.

I let out a sob and he takes a step towards me with concern in his eyes before he remembers, and then he lets out a sob of his own. His hand cups his mouth and he crumbles to the floor.

I wipe my eyes on the back of my hands and I resist the urge to run to him. I don’t think that I could stand it if he were to turn me away. It’s several minutes before he even tries to form a word and even then it’s just a single, slurred, “Why?”

“You seemed happy,” my voice cracks, “I loved you, I wanted you to be happy.” _I still love you._

He climbs back to his feet. “That’s bullshit. If you loved me you wouldn’t of lied. You would’ve trusted me and you wouldn’t have--Holy shit, you agreed to marry me. Was that _funny_ to you? Huh? ‘The dumb bastard doesn’t know his boyfriend’s dead, so let’s see how long I can string him along for’.”

“It was never like that!”

“Then what was it like?”

“I’m sorry,” I sob, “At first, I just didn’t wanna die. And then I fell in love with you and I just…I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid of…of this. Of you hating me.”

He coughs out a laugh that holds no humor. “And is it as terrifying as you thought it would be?” He sneers.

“No,” I insist. “NO! You love me too. I know you do. That’s why you proposed! You don’t hate me. _Please don’t hate me_!” My voice is small by the end and I know that I sound like a child but I don’t have it in me to care.

He grabs me by the collar of my shirt and slams me up against the wall so hard that it hurts, and knocks the breath out of me so I can’t protest. His breath is hot as it fans against my face. For the first time I an genuinely scared of him.

His voice is low. Strong and certain but with a tiny tremble to it. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and clean myself up. Then we’re going to go to the hospital and I’m going to figure out some goddamn way to make it look like that guy is mistaken and there is no chip. And if by some miracle the two of us survive tonight you are going to pack up all of your...of _his_ shit and make certain I never see you again.”

I nod furiously. I want to protest, but Jared’s right. I owe him this. I owed him the truth and since I never gave him that I owe him this.

I think of Jared and someone else, together. Some nameless, faceless, guy or girl. The thought of him kissing someone else, let alone…it hurts like a physical ache. Almost worse than the idea of him hating me is the idea of him loving somebody else.

Does that make me a terrible person?

We stay there, both breathing harshly before Jared uncurls his hands from my collar and steps away. He’s almost to the bathroom door when he turns around and says one last thing:

“And, Jensen, leave the ring.”

***

We’re riding in the car, on the way to the hospital. I should be terrified of what will happen tonight but I feel strangely numb. It’s raining and I watch the drops slide down the window, pretending it’s a race. Out of nowhere, in a voice that is low, but trembling with anger, he begins to speak.

“Alona. That was you, wasn’t it? What did you do to her?”

“She was going to kill me.”

“So you killed her. You’re a selfish bastard. Do you know that? How many people have to die so that you can live?”

When I don’t answer he doesn’t say anything else and I go back to watching raindrops race.


	9. The Transfer

We go in through the doctor’s entrances. It’s late at night so no one is there to ask any questions.

Jared isn’t looking at me. He keeps his eyes straight ahead and his pace brisk. Everything seems so intense that the ride in the elevator is almost comically anticlimactic and it takes much of my willpower not to snort out a laugh.

“What are you going to do?” I ask. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Jared to tell me that helping me, an original that killed his boyfriend, isn’t worth facing jail time or possibly a harvest. I want to reassure him. I want to tell him that if we get caught I’ll lie for him but his biting silence gives off the impression that a reassurance would not be welcome.

By the time the elevator doors open, Jared still hasn’t given me an answer.

He guides me to the nearest glass door and presses his palm against it. “Welcome to Operation Room Number Seven, Doctor Jared Padalecki.”

On the inside, it looks like one of the Harvest rooms in the basement, with the cool metal table in the center. Except that this room is black and there is another door that leads to a supply closet in the far right corner.

I know where the door leads because Jared opens it and pushes me inside.

“Whatever you do, don’t make a sound.” It’s all he says before he shuts the door and locks it manually from the outside.

All I can do is take quiet breaths and try to ignore the smell of cleaning detergents and the feeling of mop handles pressing into my back. A feeling I’m really not enjoying considering the bruises that had already begun forming when Jared slammed me against the wall.

I hear the metal door open and then close. Footsteps walk away. I am alone.

Five minutes later the door opens again and I hear voices talking. One of them belongs to Jared and the other belongs to a man I don’t recognize. Most likely the man with my double’s chip in his arm.

“So what will this procedure entail, Doctor?”

“Well, I’m going to have to put you under, and then run a few tests that will require the removal of your arm.”

“The removal of my—“

“Sir, if you could just keep your voice down.”

“This is ridiculous. You want to _remove_ my arm! Can’t you just take out the chip?”

“I’m sorry, sir, we have to be certain the chip is there first. Otherwise the procedure is a liability. We could be sued.”

“A small incision is a liability but removing my arm isn’t?”

“The removal of your arm should be quick and leave you in no pain when you wake up, due to its recent attachment. An incision can be healed but there is more risk in the procedure.”

“Risk of what? Those chips are the size of peanuts so the incision can’t be much bigger.”

“Risk of the surgeons hand slipping, of severing an artery, of you bleeding out. Highly unlikely but the possibility is enough for us to be forced to ensure the necessity of the procedure.”

“This is all some kind of money scheme, isn’t it? More procedures mean more cash. I swear to god, if I receive a bill for this I’m going to the government. I shouldn’t have to pay because you idiots left a chip in the arm by mistake. I’m already paying, taking time off of work, you know?”

“Well, the sooner you lie back on the table the sooner the procedure can begin.”

“How long will it take?”

“You’ll awake in two hours, completely pain free. That’s when we’ll discuss the removal of the chip if there proves to be one.”

“This is such bullshit.”

The man’s voice is slurring and I can tell he’s already been injected with the anesthesia. I’ve been holding my breath up until this point and I let out a long sigh. I’m not paying attention to noises anymore and I almost jump in surprise when the door slides open.

Jared nods at me to step out of the closet before going over to the room’s exit and locking it manually. He then goes over to the drawers on the side of the room and pulls out a laser, along with a bottle of liquid and a sponge.

“So you’re just going to take the chip out?”

“No.”

It’s the first word he’s said to me since we exited the car. He walks up to the unconscious man and rolls up his sleeve before pouring some of the liquid from the bottle onto the sponge and rubbing it over the man’s arm.

I step closer. I can see a faint pink scar, like a ring around the man’s arm. _M_ y arm, I note. We have the same sized hand and the same light dusting of freckles that trace up our skin. 

“Lucky for you, he doesn’t appear to have made any changes. No tattoos, no scrapes or bruises.” Jared says, as though I’m supposed to understand what he’s talking about.

“What do you mean, lucky for me. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to perform a transfer.” He puts the cap back on the liquid before placing both it and the sponge on the ground. He twists the bottom part of the laser and a red line shoots out, slightly longer than the one Alona had used on me during my cleaning.

He begins to slide it down the man’s arm, separating his limb from his shoulder. Slicing through skin and bone like a knife through cake.

“You, you mean _swap_ our arms. Why? Why not just take out the chip?”

“Because it’ll leave a scar. And even if I remove that scar the laser would leave marks. Pinker hairless skin, it would be noticeable. So I remove both of your arms, send yours down for x-rays and then attach his to you and yours to him. He’ll never know.”

He turns the laser off and pulls the arm away from the rest of the man’s body. I don’t know what chemical was in the liquid Jared used on the man, or how the laser works, but he doesn’t appear to be bleeding.

Jared goes back to the drawer and pulls out a syringe and another, very small bottle of clear liquid.

“We don’t have another table and I can’t bring you to another room without drawing suspicion so you’ll have to lie down on the floor.”

I do. The floor is cold but it looks clean and my mind is on other things right now. “Will it hurt, when I wake up?”

“You’ll be sore. But nothing too bad. I’ll remove the chip before I complete the transfer.”

I nod and hold out my arm. I barely feel the needle enter my skin. And then the ceiling is a little hazy and then darkness.

***

I awaken in the supply closet. I’m curled up into a ball on the ground. The world is still out of focus but I’m glad because there’s something off about my right arm and I know, somewhere in the back of my cloudy mind that if I was lucid right now it would hurt like hell.

There are voices outside the closet door and the situation comes spinning back to me. The transfer. The chip. The lie. Jared.

His voice is there too. I want to call out his name but my mouth feels loose and slack and forming words is not coming as easily as it should.

I catch words, phrases that float through the door and the fog in my mind:

No chip.

X-ray.

Thank you.

Good day.

The closest door opens and I look up to see Jared, an amused expression on his face.

“It’s time to go.”

I make a displeased grunt and attempt to roll over. I knock a couple mops over in the process and the fall on top of me. Jared chuckles. “Maybe I used a bit too much anesthesia, huh? I think I overestimated how much you weigh.”

  He hooks him arms under mine and hoists me to my feet. I stumble but his arm wraps around my waist and I bury my head in the dip of his neck. I don’t remember reaching the car, or getting into it. I don’t remember the drive home.

I do remember being placed on the couch and a blanket being draped over me.

“Yeah, you’re not gonna be able to go anywhere tonight.” Jared mutters.

And then he’s gone, and there’s a soft snoring coming through the walls and I fight the urge to stumble into the bedroom and curl up next to him.

I don’t remember falling asleep but I must have.

***

Pain shoots through my arm and I groan. I’m too afraid to roll up my sleeve and look at the damage. Instead, I ease myself into a sitting position on the couch, pausing every time lightening courses through my veins.

I have a headache. My vision is still blurry and I’ll be surprised if I make it through this morning without throwing up.

Definitely too much anesthesia.

I make my way into the bathroom. After I pee, I search for my toothbrush. It isn’t there. I go back into the main room and that’s when I notice the duffel bag sitting next to the door. Jared must’ve packed for me last night.

On top of the bag are a couple of hundred dollar bills. They’ll be able to get me a couple of nights at a motel.

The message is loud and clear.

Don’t stay.

Don’t say goodbye.

Don’t come back.

The last thing I see before I close the door to Jared’s apartment is the engagement ring that I’ve left on the couch, on top of the folded up blanket.

In reality, I should be happy. This is the best I could’ve hoped for. I’m safe. I’m employed. I’m alive.

I should be happy.


	10. The Graveyard

Three months. Mostly I’m working, or planning for work. I don’t know how bad the institutions actually are, or whether I would’ve minded going to one all that much, but they were effective and I’m finding myself behind where I should be, where my double would’ve been. When I’m not working I’m spending time with Jake. He thinks Jared and I broke up because I turned down the engagement. I remember sprouting off some bullshit about not being ready to commit and then asking him not to bring it up again.

He didn’t.

Three months and a very familiar date on the calendar is coming up.

Jake and I agree to spend the night together, watching bad television and eating an exorbitant amount of food. I tell myself that I’m not going to be sad about my inability to spend my birthday with my family, at least, not outwardly sad. Jake is a good friend; he doesn’t have to spend the night with me because I have no one else. He has other friends he could be with, unlike me. I don’t want to put a damper on the evening.

But there is something I want to do first. Because it isn’t just my birthday that’s coming up.

Somewhere along the line someone in a very expensive suit with a lot of political power decided that our dead were taking up too much space. The Mandatory Cremation Act was passed; it’s something I’m going to be teaching about eventually. The rebellion that met it, outcries of religious men and women, of those who still wanted to bury their dead.

According to the history books the protests just died off. I’m beginning to doubt that that is what actually happened. I’m beginning to doubt a lot about my government.

I think back to my childhood, being taught history by my mother and the tutor she’d hired. The tutor was an older woman with long grey hair and skin that looked and felt like crinkled paper. She’d let something slip about a civil war once. I remember it very clearly because even though I hadn’t expressed any further interest in learning about the Civil war, or any part of history for that matter, the woman had freaked. She’d made me promise not to mention it to my parents, said that there were laws about teaching that sort of thing and she could lose her job.

I’d kept my promise and never mentioned it to my parents but I’d looked it up online after the woman had left. That was the first time I’d ever heard of slavery. Even now it isn’t a part of my curriculum.

Nevertheless, rather than graveyards we have crypts. Crypts that are many stories high and hold rows and rows of ashes. It is where my grandfather remains and it is where my double remains, even if no one else knows it.

I want to be able to blame him, but I don’t. Months of thinking have led me to the conclusion that we were both victims. I can’t say I’ve never killed to save my own life and I can’t very well condemn him for doing the same. There are other people to blame, many others. People like President McNiven all those years ago, like Alona, like Jared.

I considered bringing flowers but the idea just seemed so ridiculous so I go empty handed.

The crypts are not guarded but the urns are all behind glass cases and only the families of the dead know the code that make the glass doors open. I don’t know my double’s code. I don’t need to. I have no intention of opening his urn; I just want to pay some sort of last respect.

If I’d have thought harder I would’ve seen it coming. I’d made certain my family had already stopped by, I’d watched their car drive away, fighting back tears at the sight of my sobbing mother as my father led her out to the vehicle.

The crypts are arranged alphabetically and by family.

It doesn’t take long to find the Ackles. We’re in the very first hallway and I walk past the shelves of urns protected by thick glass. Some have flowers next to them. A few have children’s toys. A baby blanket. An action man.

Seeing the graves of children always made me sad. People tended to live well into their hundreds nowadays. A dead three year old seemed so very unfair.

If I’d have thought harder I would’ve seen it coming. I would’ve noticed the car parked in the lot. I would’ve been prepared to come around the corner and see him. Standing with a single red rose like something out of a goddamn romance movie.

I bet he doesn’t know the code to my double’s urn either and therefore has nowhere to put the rose.

I don’t feel the pang of loss that I thought I would. The man I loved never existed in the same way the boy Jared loved wasn’t real. I’d idolized him, but he wasn’t an idol. Thinking it through. I’d wanted to be wanted. To not feel so alone.

He made me feel those things. Feel loved. And after three months of not feeling loved I’d come to accept the fact that I’d never felt love for him either. I’d just wanted to.

His eyes land on me and I brace myself for the anger. Instead he simply looks back at the crypt. “Come to look at your handiwork. You’re the one who put him in there, you know?” His voice is flat and far away and it makes me angry.

“You’re such an asshole.” The words literally fall out of my mouth. I could never have imagined speaking to anyone like that but I don’t try to take it back because I mean it.

“I’m an asshole,” his voice is rising now, “You have to be kidding me. You killed my boyfriend. And I saved your life. Your goddamn life. After everything you did to me. I think I deserve a fucking thank you. Not to be called names.”

He turns on his heel and begins to walk away. He is expecting to have left me speechless. The boy I’d been three months ago would’ve been left speechless.

“Bullshit!” Jared turns around in obvious surprise and I go on, because I need to scream at somebody, I’ve been holding in too much for too damn long. “You never lifted a finger to help an original until me and that’s only because you knew me enough to feel guilty about killing me.

You use your little ‘doing my job is the best way to help’ line so that you can keep living in your goddamn apartment with your goddamn chandeliers and your goddamn hovercraft races. You tell yourself your helping so that you can sleep at night without feeling like a killer, but your still as much of a killer as Alona was.”

“And as you are,” he shoots back. He’s moving towards me now, fire in his eyes.

“Everything I did I did in self defense. Even lying to you. Maybe not staying with you, but lying to you.”

“Everything I did I did in self defense—“

“No, everything you did you did to cover your own ass at other people’s expenses. And you know what, fuck you. I felt _so_ bad about what I did to you; about making you think I was him. But not anymore! Because I don’t believe that if I’d have told you any sooner than I had to that you would’ve let me live. So be mad at me, if you want to, but don’t act like you do anything but pretend the world is fucking dandy while innocent children are gassed to death. My double isn’t dead because of me. He’s dead because of you!”

My last words echo through the hallways, bouncing off the glass and the stone and gliding through the empty air.

We’re both panting.

I’m waiting for him to hit me. To scream. To run away.

The words that leave his mouth next surprise me: “You’re right.” He shakes his head. There are tears forming in his hazel eyes. His hands are running through his hair. “You’re right. I know your right. I killed him. Hell, if I hadn’t of left with you I would’ve helped take him apart. And I didn’t even notice he was missing, didn’t even notice you’d taken his place. Do you have any idea how guilty it makes me feel?”

“Good.”

“Good?” He doesn’t sound angry. Just tired. Exasperated. We both are.

Three months. Three months of this life and I’ve realized that it isn’t what I want. I don’t want to be a teacher for a government that slaughters children. I don’t want to keep living in this constant state of fear. Fear that one day I’ll wake up to police officers banging on my door and dragging me to Harvest table.

“Yes. It is good. You’re angry and you’re guilty and you can either keep turning your cheek and pretending your doing the right thing or you can actually stand up for originals.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Stand up how? I’m an Exam doctor not a government official. If I start stomping my feet I’ll end up on an operating table and so will you. You can’t fight city hall.”

“We don’t have to fight city hall. We just have to expose them. If people knew what they were really doing to their children, there’s no way they’d stand for it.”

I can feel excitement boiling inside of me. Bubbling just underneath my skin. Because it’s true. The government wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble—the cleanings, the wipings—unless they knew people wouldn’t agree. There were already people that didn’t like the Examination, people that thought it was cruel, what if they knew it was a hoax?

They kept doctors in line by holding the threat of a Harvest over their heads but all one of them needed to do, all Jared needed to do, was take the risk.

“If we get caught, we’re dead. And we’re going to get caught, it’s almost guaranteed.” He’s skeptical but I can tell from the way he’s looking me over that he’s just an inch away from giving in. All he needs is something to push him over the edge.

I motion toward my double’s urn with my eyes. The urn my family visited today thinking it was mine. “True. But I think that you at least owe it to him to try.”

The air is laden with anticipation. I don’t dare take a breath; don’t even dare to make a sound. Jared bends down and places the rose on the floor. It’s the closest he can get it to the urn without the code needed to lift the glass.

When he looks up to me he breathes out the word “Okay,” as though there’s some sort of need to whisper. He nods to himself, “Okay, I’ll help you. I’ll help you expose them. But however we do this, we’ve gotta make sure we have a damn good plan. I’m not getting my guts ripped out because we half assed this.”

He grins at me and I grin back.

We exchange contact information, decide to meet up next week. We don’t have a plan or any idea how we’re going to pull this off, but now that I have someone helping me things feel like a lot less of a long shot.

It feels like we have a chance.


	11. The Recording

The first thing we needed was proof. The world was bursting at the seems with conspiracy theories and without any evidence our knowledge would be folded into a paper airplane and flown into a trashcan. No one who was anyone would take us seriously and we’d no doubt end up getting harvested by the government, something we both very much wanted t avoid, if at all possible.

Lucky for us, an exam doctor was in the absolute perfect position to garner evidence. It took weeks of scouring the Internet and sundry stores and shops before we found the perfect way to conceal a camera:

Contact lenses.

We electronically hooked them up to the wall screen in Jared’s bedroom—the one in his living room still had a rather large dent in it. I did my best not to think about why that was.

Basically, the contact lenses switched on when they made contact with Jared’s eyes, and then everything he saw was saved and recorded on the screen at his apartment. The only problem was that the ‘Doctor’s Entrance’ had a scanner for this sort of thing: cameras, recorders, you name it. We weren’t sure if the scanner would detect the lenses, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

We were going to have to get them in another way.

So, at noon, I entered through the public entrance with the contact case heavy in my pocket under the guise of having lunch with Jared. Apparently our break up had become quite the topic of gossip over the months we were apart because as we walk to the cafeteria we receive numerous looks, winks, and are witness to many whispers behind cupped palms.

I don’t know what institution schooling would’ve been like, but I imagine it would’ve been similar to this.

We sit down, alone, at one of the round tables in the far corner of the hospital cafeteria. No one comes to sit with us. They’re probably all holding their breaths and praying we start making out or something. The thought makes me hold back a chuckle. Three months ago I would’ve wanted nothing more than for Jared to take me back. Now, I had bigger priorities and I wonder how the nurses with their blonde hair and their glossy lips would respond if they were to find out what those priorities were.

I wonder how President McNiven will respond when her dirty little masterminded secret was up on screens all across the country. But I was getting ahead of myself.

“You with me?” Jared asks, knocking his elbow against mine and drawing my thoughts back to the plan. I shift in my seat and turn to look at him.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I say as I slip the contact lens case into the pocket of his scrubs, looking around to make sure no one noticed. He stiffens briefly when he feels it, before returning to eating his sandwich. “They’re all watching us,” I whisper. Like I’ve just noticed. Like there’s a possibility he hasn’t. At this point I just want something to talk about. Sitting here eating in silence is awkward and downright suspicious.

“Of course they are, we’re hot.”

“Do you really think now is the time for joking?”

“I think every time is the time for joking.”

With that, he takes a large bite out of his tuna sandwich and proceeds to chew with his mouth open. I turn away in exaggerated disgust. It’s a lot like the way we used to be before he found out what I was. Just as long as we don’t bring up Jensen Ackles I.C., and if you ignore the fact that we’re no longer sleeping together, it’s almost like nothing has changed.

At the end of lunch Jared walks me to the public exit and for a brief moment I think that he’s going to kiss me, just to keep up appearances. And there’s a second when we’re standing there staring at each other like the moment is teetering on the edge of a cliff and then one of the nurses accidently bumps into me and the moment falls and is shattered by the jagged rocks below and with a hasty goodbye, I run out the door.

***

I type in the security code, a four-digit number, on the screen and a window pops up. And suddenly I’m staring down into the same pristine white ovular arena I walked blindly into all those months ago.

It’s strange, staring at it from a bird’s eye point of view.

Jared must turn to look at the doctor sitting next to him in what he called the Observation Deck. It’s a tiny room above the arena that looks down into it through a one-way mirror. The doctor has darker hair than Alona did but it’s still a light shade of blonde. Something about the way she’s smiling at Jared, the way her long slim fingers are running through her hair, the way her peach-colored lips curl at the ends, makes me grind my teeth, though I can’t hear what’s being said.

After a few moments Jared looks back down into the arena. It is a girl this time. I can’t tell which is the double and which is original as they walk forward to meet each other in the center of the arena. They wear the same jumpsuits my double and I did.

Sandra, that was it. Jared had said the original’s name was Sandra McCoy.

I feel a sense of guilt twisting in my stomach, watching her, using her death like this. I know it’s for the best. If I had to die I would want it to change something. To be _for_ something. I also know the guilt is irrational because this has been happening regularly over the months since my double and I competed and I’d never felt like this before. My guilt is a matter of proximity. But it feels real, nonetheless.

One of the girls looks upward, at the ceiling, and I remember the automated voice that spoke down to my double and I when we were in the arena. I can’t hear it but I can recall it’s smooth female tone. Apathetic. Emotionless. Mechanical.

_I feel dizzy._

The girls begin to move away from each other, I wander if this is what’s supposed to happen when you and your double don’t start punching each other and rolling around on the white tile floor like animals. The two girls are on opposite sides of the arena.

I see the tiny black box in one of the girl’s hands and I remember how the speckled surface felt against my own fingertips.

I see the blue tube of light—the force field—shoot down from the ceiling, and I remember seeing my double’s dead body slumped against it.

I see the shock cross the original’s face as she runs toward her double and

_I feel nauseous._

The sincere surprise brings tears to my eyes. I think of all the hundreds of originals that have died over the course of The Double Initiative. I think of all their organs being ripped out and donated and their bodies being shoved into a shaft and burned. I think of millions of knocks on millions of doors of millions of families and I think of the looks on mother’s faces as they’re told that their child is dead. That their baby wasn’t good enough. Didn’t deserve to live. Is dead because of them.

It’s all too much for me to grasp. But I can grasp what it feels like to be an original. To have a mother that thinks you’re dead. That thinks you hate her. That blames herself. I can hear one knock on one door and I know, thanks to a day I will never forget, I know exactly what Sandra McCoy is thinking right now. Is feeling right now.

The difference is, for her, it is the last thing she will ever feel.

_I am crying._

Sobbing, actually. Wet choked noises that fill the room. I’d be humiliated if I wasn’t alone. Sandra reaches forward the touch the blue wall of electricity and it zapped the same way my double was. That’s when white smoke wisps begin to fill the room and the terror is clear in her big brown eyes and the smoke begins to engulf her.

But what draws my eyes is not the tears of the dying girl, but rather, those of the living one. Her hand is covering her mouth and her eyes are red and puffy. After a few moments she removes her hand and begins to scream something repeatedly. It looks a lot like “I’m Sorry.”

The original tumbles to her hands and knees, her coordination washing away like the evening tide and her eyes are glazing over. She falls onto her back and brings one of her hands up to her throat, indicating an inability to breathe. But she is still screaming, for what I assume is help.

She hasn’t realized that the people she’s screaming to are the people who shoved her in there in the first place.

And suddenly strings of sorrys are falling from my lips as well, like flurries of winter snow. Even though no one is around to hear them.

When the white smoke fades away the original is on her back, empty eyes staring up at nothing. The double is curled up into a ball. She’s pulled her knees into her chest and buried her face in them. She’s shaking constantly, once and a while she’ll tremble more violently as she lets out a sob, but mostly it’s just a constant tremor. I’m beginning to think the wiping is not only for security but also for sanity.

If the world can watch this video and not demand change then it is not a world I want to live in.

The force field vanishes in an electric zap but Sandra doesn’t move. For a moment, the screen becomes blurry and I wonder if Jared is crying.

He makes his way down the staircase and enters the elevator. The doors open just as the doors to the opposite elevator open and a team of nurses with a stretcher rushes out. They appear to be in quite a hurry, organs are only good for so long, I suppose.

Felling strangely numb I make my way to the bathroom, lean over the cold porcelain and puke.

When I reenter the bedroom there is a speech bubble on the side of the wall screen with a message from Jared in bold black text.

“Got it.”


	12. The Projection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to post, for a while I really wasn't sure where I wanted to go with this, but I have it figured out now :) 
> 
> Also, we are nearing the end, only one chapter left and then the epilogue. I have been considering writing a timestamp or a sequel (though the latter would have to wait until I finish my Bigbang). Once I've finished the whole story and you've finished reading it I would appreciate any thoughts on the ending and what route you think I should take: timestamp, sequel or leave as is.
> 
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated.

The weight of the engagement ring on my finger feels both familiar and foreign. Like seeing a movie you loved for a second time and finding yourself disappointed. Like it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Doesn’t hold the excitement it once used to.

That is the ring.

I thought it would feel heavier now but instead it feels lighter. Hollow of the promise it once held.

I can’t help but fiddle with it as Jared drives. The motion of twirling the ring around and around my finger is the only thing that keeps my hands from shaking in anticipation.

This is it. The big finale. Pulling back the curtain in an attempt to show the entire world the truth about the Examination and the Double Initiative. The deep dark secret whispered behind locked doors and watched from hidden observation decks high above.

Success means saving countless lives.

Failure means losing our own.

“Hey Jensen,” Jared’s voice yanks me out of my thoughts and I stop playing with the ring now that I realize he’s paying attention to me. I don’t want him to see that and think…well, I’m not quite sure what I don’t want him to think. That it still means something to me? That I’m nervous about night?

“Yeah,” I finally whisper. Talking at a normal volume seems heinous for some reason now. As if we’re in a library or a church or something. Like President McNiven will overhear us and balls of fire will pour down from the sky like rain.

“I just want you to know, whatever way this all goes down, I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t expecting this, and to be honest I don’t really want it. The apology makes me feel close to tears and that’s not the last thing I want to feel. Assuming this doesn’t happen the way we want it to and we end up on the harvesting table, I want to be reasonably happy.

It is similar to how I felt the day of my Examination, except this time I am ready to fight.

“You already apologized. It’s fine,” I say shortly, and turn my attention back on the road. The buildings we drive past begin to look familiar. I have been this way twice before over the past six months.

“No, it isn’t.” He sighs, frustrated, and runs a hand through his hair in a way that I once found so attractive. I shouldn’t say that. Once implies that I don’t feel that way anymore, and I do.

As much as I hate to admit it. As hard as it was for me to realize that Jared wasn’t who I thought he was, wasn’t my perfect idealization, it was good for me. I needed to grow up, to disillusion myself.

The problem is that slowly but surely he’s been weaving that illusion back together like weaving straws together to make a basket.

“You did what you had to in order to survive, and I crucified you for it. And that wasn’t fair. Especially since I’ve spent my entire adult life doing the same thing. And I just—I hated myself for what happened to him and I projected that onto you. So, I’m sorry.”

I look away and squeeze my eyes shut to prevent the inevitable onslaught of tears. I know how I will sound. Similar to a child asking their mother to check in their closet for a monster, but I have to know. I don’t know why it matters. If the answer was ever yes, it isn’t anymore, but I have to know. “Did you ever love me?”

God I feel like a girl.

The moments in between the echo of my words and the indrawn breath that begins his are tiny eternities. Never-ending stretches between the tiny ticks on clocks only ever seen anymore on the walls of the elderly.

I am ready for the ‘no’, but I’m aware that it will burn nonetheless.

“I did.” He whispers, I can feel his eyes baring into my back and I consider turning to look at him but I don’t have it in me. “I do. I just felt so guilty about it that I wished I didn’t.”

Finally, I turn and my eyes meet his. Thankfully, the threat of tears has subsided. My eyes feel dry and hollow. “And now?”

He tightens his grip on the wheel and turns his eyes toward the road, even though the car is on automatic. “Now, I’m hoping for a shot at redemption,” he looks back over at me, “In a couple of different aspects.”

His smile is small but present, and slightly self-deprecating. His hazel eyes are wide with hope.

Is he perfect?

Has he made mistakes?

_Fuck yeah._

Does he deserve forgiveness?

_God only knows._

Do I love him?

I smile back.

***

We arrive at the hovercraft arena five minutes before the race kicks off. It was decided months ago that there was no way we could break into a news station or steal a projection hovercraft and display the tape that way. There weren’t enough of us and the breach of security would’ve been noticed before we could even press play.

While we knew the odds of us ending up as charcoal were rather high, we had no interest in augmenting them.

But hovercraft races were broadcasted on television and we had a friend behind the scenes. Or rather, Jared had a friend. Jim Beaver was his name and he was apparently, the man who pulled the metaphorical puppet strings when Jared proposed to me. He’d been in charge of the production, the lights, and the letters swirling around in the sky like mixed paint. He was just the man we needed.

Apparently, Mr. Beaver had been anxious to meet Jared’s mysterious fiancée, hence me wearing the ring again.

Of course, he didn’t know our actual intentions.

We climbed out of the slick silver car. This time _The Crows_ were versing _The Hawks_ and the stadium was decked out in both blue and black and brown and yellow colors. Flags and fireworks reach up into the sky, illuminating the setting sun.

My heart wasn’t beating so much as my entire body was.

Jared came around the car and reached out a hand. I took it and both of our hands were so sweaty that when he pulled me forward, toward the employee entrance of the arena, mine nearly slid out of his.

He threw a sympathetic look over his shoulder, his brown hair flopping in the wind, his features illuminated by the sunset. I felt him squeeze my hand tightly and some of my tension released.

We stopped in front of the entrance and Jared knocked on the door. As we waited I watched the hovercrafts rise into the air, over the ovular metal wall of the arena. Spinning and twisting and gliding. I jumped when an older man with a beard and a beer gut swung the door open.

I’d always imagined operators as dressed, well, dressed the way I was for my exam. Sitting in chairs with wheels staring up at a wall screen and pushing buttons, like some sort of masterminds. This man with his plaid shirt, disheveled appearance, and friendly smile seems to be none of those things.

I almost feel bad about what we’re about to do to him.

“Jim,” Jared says with an excited grin. He drops my hand to shake the operator’s.

“Hey Padalecki. Good to see you, son. This the boy you’ve been bragging about?” He motions towards me and I blush despite myself. Jared coughs awkwardly and nods. Jim knows nothing of the truth, not even our breakup, and pretending to be engaged to a man I’m pretending not to love is messing with my head a bit. Jim holds out a beefy hand and I accept it. “Nice to meet you, Jared sure talked about you enough.” Now it’s his turn to blush.

Jim steps back from the door, “How rude of me. Come in, come in.”

He leads us through a short hallway and into the control center. It is mostly black. One large wall screen displays what is happening outside in the arena in a grid of different camera angles and there is a row of touch screen tables in front of it, as well as docs on the wall for tablets, like the one Jared has hidden in his jacket pocket. The one with the recording on it.

Jim is the only operator on duty today; we’d planned it like that. The three of us sit in the few chairs in front of the row of tables.

“So be honest,” Jim says to me, “Were you expecting it?”

“Expecting what?”

“The proposal, of course.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like an idiot and praying I don’t fuck up and give us away. “No, not at all.”

“Thought not. Jared says you’d just come from you’re Assignment Ceremony. What’d you get?”

“History teacher.” There’s a hint of elation in my voice. I don’t mean to sound elitist but I really am proud of my job.

Jim smiles, leans forward a little, and begins to tell a story of his sister-in-law who, apparently, used to teach English until one day she accidentally used a quote from one of the Forbidden Books in her sample essay for an assignment and she got demoted to trash collector. He seems particularly aggrieved by this, but not at all surprised.

I nod sympathetically in the right places but really I’m watching the wall screen out of the corner of my eye. Watching the mesh of oranges turn into a blanket of deep blue. Jared and I exchange a quick look and I clear my throat.

“Can I use the restroom,” I ask, politely.

“Sure, kid. Out that hallway, first door on your right.”

I mutter a thanks and begin to follow the directions briskly. I lock the bathroom door; pull out of my jacket a rag and a small bottle of liquid that Jared managed to nab from his work. They’ll probably notice the missing chloroform eventually and it won’t be hard to figure out who purloined it, but by that point it won’t really matter.

Keeping our identities a secret was never going to be an option if we wanted to get the video out there. People are going to find out we did this, all we can do is hope their reaction is to be horrified, not by our actions, but by those of the government.

After spreading he liquid over the rag and tossing the empty bottle in the trash I lean over the sink and allow myself to hyperventilate for about five seconds. My forehead is lined with sweat, though it is not particularly hot, and my face is flushed. I sigh softly before steeling myself and pushing open the door.

I make sure my steps don’t click on the tile as I walk up behind Jim. Jared does his job well: engaging him and making sure not to even glance at me. Jim crinkles his nose at the smell of the chemical, but other than that he doesn’t sense it coming at all when I wrap my arm around his neck and hold the rag tight over his mouth and nose so that he breathes in nothing but fumes.

His struggling is idle with Jared holding his arms down and my grip on his neck. He does manage to kick the row of tables pretty hard and for a brief moment my heart drops to my stomach like a deadweight and I’m certain he’s damaged the technology so that our plan is ruined, but nothing on any screen even flickers.

His screaming is idle as well. No one can hear him except for us and we can’t even understand what he’s saying. (Well, I’m pretty sure I make out a few curse words, but I can’t be certain.)

After what feels like both more and less time than it probably actually was, Jim’s body sags in the chair like a ragdoll, like all his strings have been cut and nothing is keeping him upright anymore.

As we roll his chair away from the table I notice that he is drooling into his beard and I wince. I lock all of the doors to the Control Center. Jared plugs the tablet into one of the docks. It takes nearly ten minutes of him trying to figure out the technology and of me keeping watch before he waves me over.

First he presses a button that slowly cuts off energy to the all of the hovercrafts. I watch on the wall screen as the hovercrafts stop racing, then slowly float to the ground, swaying like pieces of paper or leaves would.

Once they are all on the ground, and the first cries of “What the hell,” and “I didn’t pay for _this_ ,” have started (we can here them through a speaker in the wall, though they are muffled considerably), Jared presses another button, cutting out the lights so that the entire arena is swept under the darkness.

Then, one last button, and a projection of Sandra McCoy’s Examination is shot up into the sky. Holographic and three-dimensional. Spread across televisions around the world, for all to see.”


	13. The Extermination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to the end! This is the last chapter, and then the epilogue. Hope you enjoy.

My breath catches. Millions of paper butterflies flutter around my stomach. Cliché as it is, it doesn’t feel _real_. Watching a hologram through a screen seems like it could be happening on television for all I know.

“Hey, Jay?” I say breathlessly. Ironic how the weight of this moment makes me feel weightless.

I don’t have to ask. He knows. He smiles softly at me and says “I’ve got things under control here, I’ll call you if anything happens. You can go. I know this is important for you.”

He’s right. This is, without a doubt, the most important thing that I have ever done. I need to go outside, into the night, under the holographic images of the dying girl. It is like pinching myself to prove that all of this is real. Until then I will feel as though I am grasping at ghosts. Like there is a part of me that cannot believe that what I’m seeing isn’t the camera deceiving me until I see it in the flesh.

I press a quick kiss to Jared’s cheek before I can think better of it, and then I dash out the exit, pausing to make sure I hear the click of Jared locking the door behind me.

I am pure white-hot adrenaline. Goosebumps line my arms. As I run I begin to fantasize. I imagine my name in big bold letters on wall-screens fifty years from now. I imagine going down in history as a hero. It is a dumb, childish dream but at this moment I feel as if I could sprout wings and soar if I wished hard enough.

I lean forward and run faster. Pushing myself. Feeling like a propeller.

Shouts fill my ears the closer I get. No security guards the arena entrance anymore, they are all a few feet away, eyes glued to the projection. Mouths slightly open, looking like fish and owls simultaneously and I stifle a chuckle.

They don’t notice me as I slip into the arena, standing just behind them. The words “The Truth About The Examination” suddenly shoot up into the sky above the tape. Unlike the beautiful cursive that danced with the stars when Jared asked me to marry him all those forever’s ago, these letters are big and bold. White and blinding. They are certain.

I’m not dumb. I know that chances are the government has cut the program off by now. That television screens that were once displaying blurs of colors and buzzing crafts as they went around and around the arena are now fuzzy with white and black prickles and a static sound is pulsing through the speakers instead of the cheery voice of the announcer.

But by the time any officials arrive at the arena the crowd in the arena will have already seen too much. There will be nothing they can do. The story will spread like fleas jumping from one rat to another. Even if they somehow wipe the memory of the entire arena, the world knows _something_ is happening.

This might not change everything, but it is a damn good first domino to tip.

When the Sandra on the screen, the double, presses the button and the blue force field shoots up around her there is a brief moment of silence. A collective indrawn breath.

Then the shouts begin.

“What the hell was that?”

“Is that fucking smoke?”

“Holy shit, that girl is choking!”

“It’s all fake, you morons. IT’S ALL FAKE!”

“I knew it! I always said those clones were no good. Polluting the world. She’s a cheater!”

So not everyone is getting the desired message, but they are all affected in one way or another. Be it fear, disbelief, or validation.

There is a grin spreading on my face. Permanently molded in the dry clay of my skin. I couldn’t erase it if I tried. I throw my head back and laugh. The sound gets lost in the sea of others but I don’t mind, I just keep laughing louder.

The original Sandra McCoy falls dead. The force field disappears and the I.C. is shown sobbing. This too is met with mixed results. The most common is confusion. People don’t understand, but they will, I’ll make sure of it.

A quick trip back inside and I return with the microphone the announcer usually uses. It is small and black and heavy in my hand. I arrive just as the hologram flickers and then blinks out of the sky. There is a circle of people on the ground of the arena but I push through them violently and I make my way to the middle of the field.

“Hello,” I shout into the microphone. I have to shout several more times in order to get the crowd to quiet considerably. Theoretically, the speech I am about to give would’ve been better before the video—but we knew we had to do something drastic to catch people’s attention. And getting our proof out first was deemed more important

“I’d like to explain what just happened if you’ll let me,” I say, slightly snottily. I am getting frustrated with their inability to listen and pay attention and I only have so much more time before the government gets here and takes me—and probably Jared if they can prove he was somehow involved—away in cuffs.

Eventually the crowd quiets to a murmur and I begin to speak. “My name is Jensen Ross Ackles. I am eighteen years old. And I am an original.” I pause for an outburst but the crowd just stares at me expectantly. Wide eyes blink and I can hear an imaginary ticking in my head. A monotone ringing in my ears. Sounds I pretend exist, and I match the pace of my voice to them in order to keep it from shaking.

It’s like if I close my eyes I can see the helicopters coming to get me and the knowledge that even though we were successful, which is more than I could’ve ever asked for, I am still going to die is weighing on me. They will incinerate me before the public can make a change in this world. Probably before they even get out of beds tomorrow morning. The government will invent a crime worthy of harvesting and drag me away for supposedly committing it.

It is difficult to believe that I spent eighteen years of my life under the rule of this government and I am still just realizing all of the ways in which it is corrupt. Like every time I think my eyes are open as wide as they can go I catch a hint of a blur and they snap open even wider.

“What you just saw is the Examination of Sandra McCoy and her I.C. The I.C. won, of course, but she cheated. The Examination is a hoax.” I consider pausing here to allow for a gasp from the audience in response to either the horror of the statement or the audacity I must’ve had to make it but the words are tumbling out of my mouth like boulders down a hill and I can’t seem to close the floodgates. “It is not a hoax on the part of the double, but on that of the government. On that of President McNiven. They are killing originals in order to pretend that the Institutions are superior and to create a world full of conformity. They are murdering children.”

“They tried to murder me, but I managed to switch places with my double and convince them that I was him. I’ve been hiding in society ever since. But not anymore. I’m not going to stand by and watch originals die any longer!”

“This is bullshit,” a voice shouts from the crowd. A grating voice that belongs to a woman but I don’t even pause to acknowledge her.

I can see a string of shiny white lights coming over the horizon. They’re here. Helicopters. They are not shining with the usual colors of the police, but I suppose this is no usual circumstance. They might not just hold cops. Maybe even the governor is with them. I wonder if I will be granted a trial. Legally one is in my rights but this government has a way of sweeping certain things under the rug.

I’ve learned that from experience.

As the helicopters get closer I can hear the wind whipping around, even over the roar of the crowd. I drop the megaphone and turn to face the approaching vehicles. I will not run. I will not hide. I’ve done enough of both of those.

Now, I will stand.

It is starting to rain. Not heavily but enough to get into my eyes, though I don’t dare close them.

The helicopters come closer and closer, in a few moments they will be directly over the arena. I have felt so very much fear in my life. So very much shame. In this moment I am the proudest I have ever been of myself. Even with my impending, inevitable death, I am thrilled. I am soaring. I feel like a flag on the top of a pole, flying and snapping in the wind and refusing to let go.

My only hope is that Jared made it out. I reach down and pull out my phone. I want a chance to say goodbye. To say that even if I’d only loved an idea of him, it was the only thing I had ever truly loved. I want to know if he made it.

I wipe the rain out of my eyes and I am about to type in his number when my phone starts to buzz. He is calling me. His familiar face flashing on the screen, a photograph of a bright smile taken during the days before he found out what I was.

His call makes me feel equally joyous and terrified.

I put the phone to my ear. Hearing is hard with the roaring of noise around me. The symphony of whipping and howling and screaming surrounds me and pulls me into it. My shirt is beginning to soak through. My hair is already dripping. Goosebumps from cool air coat my skin.

“Jare?”

I can only make out a few words.

“Jen…Out now!”

I put one of my fingers in the ear that isn’t pressed to the phone. “What!”

“Run! Leave.” _Leave?_

“The arena?”

“Yes! And…fucking country…Far away as you can!”

“Where are you? Are you out?” I shake my head absently as I speak. Leave the country? Is he out of his mind? There a row of helicopters coming to get me, they’d no doubt catch me before I got across the border.

The ‘Yes’ sounds like crumpling paper, or like the white static that is probably filling the screens of millions of American’s right now.

“Well, where are you? I’ll come to you!”

“No time…helicopters. Run!” The phone clicks off. I look back up at the helicopters. Jared must’ve seen something on one of the arena security screens. Whatever it is, it sounds bad. But I knew they were going to execute me. He did too.

He knew chances were we would both die.

The hero in me wants to stay and meet my end with dignity. The part of me that loves Jared, which is a significantly larger part, turns and runs to the exit. My feet push into the muddy ground, slowing my progress. I am running through water. With no idea why or where I am going. Only the blind faith in a man who once claimed he hated me.

Cries echo throughout the stadium as people begin to spot the nondescript helicopters. There’s a lot of pointing. Some people have cameras out. I don’t slow down. I don’t pause.

I push my way through the doors of the arena. As I move my mind tries to supply any possible reasons Jared had for asking me to run, but I come up with nothing. What did he see in the helicopters? What has changed? Can he suddenly not live with me getting arrested? A brief wisp of elation flashes through my mind as I remember what Jared said about a shot at redemption. Maybe he wants that shot with me by his side.

I am reminded of the smooth, shiny ring on my finger and I run my thumb over the cool metal.

The rhythmic thud of my feet against the ground is all I focus on. I am about fifty feet from the arena when I pause and turn. The helicopters are finally over the arena. I wait for them to land, but they don’t. They don’t stop.

They are coming for me. They must’ve watched me run from the arena and are now coming to get me. I send a silent apology for Jared because I know I cannot get away now. I was so ready to die a minute ago but hope wipes away preparation.

I’m about to take off running again—because now that I have hope why just sit here and give up—when I swear I see a shape drop from one of the helicopters over the arena. And then, instead of heading towards me they start to whip around and fly away.

I’m standing there, in the rain, puzzled, when I hear a loud boom and the first ball of flames begins to blow the arena apart. It is followed by another, and then another. One for each helicopter. That is what Jared saw on the bellies of the vehicles: bombs.

Screams and bursts of flames and I am standing there. Still. Frozen. Nothing.

Horror seeps through my veins like cool tar. Jared and I have caused this. Rather than deal with the fallout the government is choosing to exterminate everyone who saw the full video of Sandra McCoy’s exam. Like pulling the plug and all the lights flick out in the time it takes to snap your fingers.

I don’t know what they will tell the public. I don’t know how much people have seen. I feel as if I don’t know anything as I watch the hovercraft arena go up in flames and I hear the wails of the people as they burn. Then, one of the bombs explodes close enough to the wall of the arena to rip through it, sending rubble raining down on me.

And then darkness.


	14. Epilogue

The Examination was the biggest day of his life, and Dmitri (Misha) Collins knew that, but he wasn’t nervous. The chances of an original winning were slim but he wasn’t just any original and he had been prepping his entire life for this. Studied hard. Never gave up.

He would win, and prove everyone that had ever called him a-harvest-waiting-to-happen wrong.

Some people said he was cocky, belligerent. Some people were morons.

The big red number one on the wall in front of him switched to a zero and the wall slid up, revealing an ovular white room. On the other side of said room was him. But not him. A boy with his face and his body and a whole different past. A double.

A confident smirk spread across Misha’s face. Showtime, ladies and gentleman.

They joined each other in the center of the room, standing about a foot apart. Misha made sure to glare but his double—Dmitri Collins I.C.—just looked kind of nervous. His hands were fidgeting and twitching and there was something tiny and black clenched in one of his fists. He was biting his bottom lip so hard Misha thought he might draw blood.

Good, he’d take any advantage he could get. Not that he needed it.

Misha’s attention was drawn away when the female automated voice began to speak, directing them. He hung on every word, while simultaneously trying to pretend that he didn’t care, to project his confident persona. His double didn’t seem to notice.

After a few moments, per the voice’s instruction, both the original and his clone went to stand on opposite sides of the arena.

Misha awaited the voice to give further instruction but then a whooshing nose filled the room and a tube of blue shot up from around his double all the way to the ceiling.

_What the hell._

He thought the same thing when white smoke began filling the room, and by consequence, his lungs. His head began to feel muddled and the room swayed as though he was on a ship. He couldn’t think very well—all of his thoughts seemed to trail off and he couldn’t get his head on straight—but he knew enough to know that something was wrong and he dashed toward the black room he’d come in through, but the door had long since closed.

He didn’t like this feeling. This up-in-the-air, what-the-fuck-is-going-on uncertainty pulsing through his veins. He really was starting to worry. Starting to feel like maybe he didn’t already have this in the bag. Maybe he didn’t even know where the goddamn bag was.

_Screw seeming confident._

“Hello,” he called. “Help me, something’s going on. I feel—“ he didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he fell to his knees and then onto his back. He lacked the energy to keep his eyes open. Gravity’s power must’ve doubled because he couldn’t even lift his arm off the ground and someone must’ve turned off the lights because all of a sudden the white room turned black with darkness and Misha was drifting away.

***

The light came back who knew how long later and Misha discovered that he was on a moving bed. A gurney. With a sheet covering his entire body, including his face. He moaned and reached to pull it off him but a large hand grabbed his and a voice hissed, “If you want to live, don’t move and don’t speak.”

Misha whimpered but was in no state to respond. He could remember images of his exam, but that and only that. Flashes of white. Walls. Floors. Smoke.

Holy shit. Smoke.

If he could get his mouth to form words he would ask why that was.

A few seconds later the light coming through the sheet was brighter and the ground was uneven and bumpy and Misha knew that we were outside. Strong arms lifted him up and he was tossed, sheet and all, into what felt like the leathery backseat of a car.

He heard a door to the same car open and close and then the vehicle began moving.

“You can take the sheet off now. And put your seatbelt on. If we get pulled over, we’re screwed.”

He pulled the sheet off of his head hurriedly and sat up. He didn’t like taking instructions but he didn’t know what else to do. He leaned forward in an attempt to see the man driving the car but all he caught was a couple of flashes of light blue scrubs.

The man was a doctor.

Maybe the harvest tables at this hospital were all full. Maybe the incineration machine was clogged up with ash of something and he was being transported to another hospital to die.

He was going to die. He had lost his examination, hadn’t I? He couldn’t quite recall. But he couldn’t believe he had lost. Not _him_.

“Who are you?” He asked. His voice shook like it was on a fault line and he took a few breaths to clear it. He wasn’t scared. Misha Collins didn’t get scared.

“It doesn’t matter.” Misha raised an eyebrow and the doctor’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. His skepticism must’ve been written on his face because the doctor went on to say, “Sorry. Nothing personal. It’s just, with what I’m doing, it’s best not to put my name out there too much.”

 _What he’s doing?_ Whatever it was couldn’t be legal or he wouldn’t be worried about his name getting out. Misha’s eyes scanned the car for the door handles, trying to see if they were both locked.

“Where are we going?” He asked this as more of an attempt to distract the man, not because he expected a straight answer. Though, one would be nice.

The man took a deep breath. The speech that followed was well rehearsed. “I assume you’ve never heard of the Underground Railroad.” Misha shook his head. No one used railroads anymore. All the train tracks were above the city. Clear tubes that weaved around skyscrapers. “Course not. Well, believe it or not, there was a time in America when white people kept African-Americans as slaves. The Underground Railroad was a system they used to escape. It isn’t a real railroad. Just a system of safe houses and whatnot.”

Misha rolled his eyes. He wasn’t interested in listening to the conspiracy theories of a lunatic. He found the lock on the door but sighed when he saw that it was closed. He could probably pry it open with his hands but he needed to distract the man some more.

“The mini-history lesson is shocking and all but where the fuck are we going?”

“Canada.” The man said without missing a beat.

Misha had been expecting “One of the hospitals in South Jersey,” or “Back to the exam because someone fucked up and this weird blue light shot out of nowhere and this puffy white smoke that made it hard to breathe started flooding the vents so we need to redo the test to get accurate results.” Misha was tempted to ask what the fuck was going on but he felt that the only way he would get any answers at all was if he stuck to more specific questions.

“Canada? Are you out of you’re fucking mind?”

The man sighed and tapped his hands against the steering wheel, as we were stopped at a red light. He huffed out, “It’s never ‘Thank You, Jared’ or ‘You saved me, Jared’ or ‘How can I ever repay you, Jared’. Shit, I just told you my name, huh? Ah, well. Not a big deal I suppose. Just don’t go running to the cops and we won’t have a problem.”

At this point Misha was about ready to break the car window because the car lock wasn’t budging and he was quite certain the man was out of his goddamn mind when the doctor’s deep voice filled the air again. “Don’t even think about it Collins, you’d only be hurting yourself. You won’t get very far and I won’t be able to trust you anymore. And this journey will be even more unpleasant if I can’t trust you.” The light turned green and the car pulled forward.

“How do you know my name?”

“I was your double’s doctor.”

“My double,” Misha repeated, dubious. 

“The examination was a hoax. They poisoned you. Do you remember that, Dmitri?”

“Misha,” Misha corrected him, without thinking. But then he did start to think and he started to remember everything: white smoke and blue electricity and pure panic. “But if I was poisoned than how—“

“There are a lot of people working toward helping people like you Misha. A lot more than there were three years ago. An entire network.” _I don’t need anybody’s help_ , Misha thought. But deep down there was a tugging sensation, telling him that he was wrong. If it wasn’t for the man driving—Jared—he would be on an operating table. “One of these people exchanged the poising with an anesthetic gas, the other is sending an already dead body to burn in your place and yet another is faking paperwork stating that none of your organs were useful because you tested positive for cancer. Welcome to the twenty-second century version of the Underground Railroad.”

He turned to look at Misha, a big happy grin on his face and his strands of his floppy hair stuck to his face with sweat. He looked at Misha like he should be jumping with joy but he sort of just felt like puking. What will his family think? That he’s dead? That he lost? He feels both embarrassed and sympathetic at the thought.

He imagines his mother standing in the graveyard halls, crying over an urn filled with ashes that aren’t his.

Jared seemed to notice his need for some time to gather his thoughts and he turned on the radio, they drove for about three hours with no noise other than the honking of cars and the electronic drumbeats echoing through the speakers.

***

Misha spent the first night at an auto-shop with a house attached where a nice mechanic with sandy hair and kind eyes made him a simple dinner and allowed Misha to sleep on his couch.

It was lumpy and uncomfortable but Misha had the feeling he wouldn’t have been able to get more sleep anyway.

Around two in the morning he pushes back the blankets and shuffles into the kitchen, keeping his blanket wrapped around him. He was just going to get a drink of water—he hadn’t been able to eat much, not at dinner and not now—when he saw that the light was on and he came upon the mechanic, Jake, sitting in silence and drinking a beer. His dirty boots propped up on the table.

When he notices Misha he raises his drink to him and motions for him to sit down, and Misha does, blanket and all.

Jake was about twenty-one but he didn’t treat Misha like a child, and he appreciated that. He had a rather fragile ego as of late and begging talked to like a twelve year old would not have helped.  The two of them sit at the dinner table without saying anything for about twenty minutes. Jared’s snoring echoes down the halls from one of the rooms and aside from the dripping of the sink it is the only sound in the house.

Eventually Jake got up and pulled another beer out of the fridge, before handing it to Misha.

“I’m under aged.”

“Not in Canada, you’re not.”

“I’m not in Canada.”

“No, but you will be soon.”

“Will my parents ever find out that I’m not dead?” The question chokes Misha up, and his cheeks flush with humiliation at how childish he is being but Jake just smiles kindly.

“It isn’t likely, but who knows? I had a friend who thought his parents would spend the rest of their lives thinking he was dead, and he was wrong. Granted they probably think that he’s a—But never mind, that isn’t my story to tell. As I was saying, who the hell knows? Maybe one day we can get rid of this damn examination and then all of the escaped originals can come back home.”

Misha doesn’t know who this friend is or what the hell Jake is talking about, for the most part, but he doesn’t ask for clarification. Instead he asks something else.

“How did it start?” He leans forward in my chair, wanting to be closer to Jake. To hear every word. Jake leans forward too so that our faces are only inches apart. “This whole “railroad thing’?”

“Like the name? It was my friend’s idea. He used to be a history teacher before the whole arena fiasco. How it started is kind of a long story. You see. I was a double, and I had this friend—“ He begins to launch into an incredible tale. A failed attempt at revealing the secret behind the exam. The anger when he found out that the boy who was practically his brother was dead, and that his original had taken his place. And the eventual acceptance that it wasn’t the fault of his friend’s original. That the corrupt government was to blame.

He doesn’t use names other than his own and Jared’s. He never tells who his friend is. But Misha has a flicker of an idea about whom Jake is talking. He remembers a news report three years ago that lit up every wall-screen in the nation.

***

Jared and Misha leave the next morning. Jake gives him a pat on the back and a hearty “Good luck.” They take one of his trucks and Misha hides in the back under a pile of blankets when they cross the Canadian border. The road bumps and twists so often and so fiercely that Misha is certain he will be covered in bruises by the end of this journey.

There is no water, nor food, nor light in the back section of the truck and Jared can’t risk stopping until they get to wherever the hell it is they’re going.

Long story short, it was hell.

It is a six-hour trip and when Jared helps Misha off of the truck and on to the concrete ground of an empty warehouse it takes him a moment or two to feel like to ground isn’t rumbling beneath him.

“This him?”

The voice is deeper than Jared’s and unfamiliar but when Misha turns around he recognizes the face. The man that runs the railroad—as Jake had describe him—and Misha was right about who it was.

Three years ago Julie McNiven’s face was everywhere, labeling him a terrorist who had cheated in his exam, pretended to be his double and then blew up a hovercraft arena, killing thousands, in an act of fury. He’d been described as unstable, insane, and malicious. Any word in the dictionary or phrase you can come up with that means anything along the lines of ‘dangerous psychopath.

He was on America’s most wanted list, no doubt. They knew he had a partner, but they were never able to prove who it was; though as Misha watches Jared press his lips to those of the mystery man’s, he can harbor a pretty good guess.

After a few moments, Jared turns around, smiling brightly. “Misha, I’d like you to meet my husband. He’s the one behind this whole operation so if I were you, I’d give him a damn big thank you. Lord knows he deserves it.”

Jared looks over at his husband who is shaking his head, but grinning nonetheless. Then, the man steps forward and holds out a hand. His eyes are a deep green and his hair is a similar color to Jake’s.

“My name’s Jensen,” he says, “It’s nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end. Thoughts? Any comments are much appreciated.
> 
> Also, any suggestions as to what to do next with this. I've been thinking about writing a sequel or a timestamp or maybe just leaving it here. Let me know which you think is the best option.


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